Senate Republicans on Friday rammed through their $70 billion bill to fund President Trump’s immigration crackdown through the remainder of his term, after beating back bipartisan efforts to add language to bar or sharply restrict a federal payout fund for his political allies.
The 52-to-47 vote early Friday morning sent the measure to the House, which was expected to move quickly to pass it.
It was a victory for the president and his party, who have been eager to spotlight their hard-line immigration stance — and Democrats’ opposition to it — in the middle of an election year when their control of Congress is at stake. Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, was the only Republican to oppose the measure, joining all Democrats.
But passage came only after Republican leaders quelled an internal revolt that had been simmering for weeks over recent moves by Mr. Trump that have underscored how his personal agenda is diverging sharply from his party’s political interests. The divisions threatened to sink the measure and prompted several G.O.P. defections on bipartisan efforts to modify it, all of which failed in an hourslong series of back-to-back votes that stretched all day Thursday and into the predawn hours of Friday.
The overnight session featured a series votes orchestrated by Democrats seeking to force Republicans to weigh in for the record on unpopular moves the president has made, including his plan to create a $1.8 billion payout fund to compensate people who he claims have been victimized by the government; his push for $1 billion in federal funding for his White House ballroom project; and his decision to name the housing secretary Bill Pulte as the nation’s top intelligence official.
While Republicans were strongly unified around the immigration bill itself, it had become the source of rare Republican pushback to Mr. Trump, as G.O.P. lawmakers revolted over his request for the ballroom and the payout fund, which many of them feared could be used to pay members of the pro-Trump mob who attacked the Capitol, with lawmakers inside, during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot..
Still in the end, while some Republicans broke with the president on those matters during hours of votes that continued into Friday morning, most of them swallowed their concerns and united to defeat Democrats’ efforts to tie Mr. Trump’s hands.
The result was the success of Republicans’ move to use a special filibuster-proof budget bill that was never meant for routine funding matters to effectively muscle through a multiyear mega-spending bill for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection over unified Democratic opposition. They resorted to the maneuver after Democrats refused to agree to further funding for Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown without new restrictions on the tactics and conduct of federal agents carrying it out.
But the legislation Republicans used instead, known as a reconciliation bill, is open to unlimited amendments, and Democrats took full advantage on Thursday and early Friday to put the G.O.P. in a difficult spot.
The action got off to a slow start on Thursday morning, when Republicans struggled to defeat an initial effort by Democrats to bar Mr. Trump from establishing the fund that could compensate his political allies.
That motion halted floor action for hours as a clutch of Republicans who supported the measure tried to leverage their votes, which were needed to keep the immigration measure on track, in exchange for assurances that their own amendments addressing the fund would get votes on the floor.
The Democrats’ proposal eventually failed, 50 to 49, with three Republicans facing re-election — Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska — joining them in support.
Though the Justice Department has said it would no longer pursue Mr. Trump’s plan to pay people who he claims have been victimized by the government, the amendment was a bid by Democrats to force Republicans to cast a politically painful vote on the matter. Many Republicans had said that they, too, would like to codify into law that such a fund could not be pursued in the future.
“America has never seen a more clear-cut case of corruption than Donald Trump’s slush fund,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said as he introduced his motion, noting that Mr. Trump himself continued to say he “loved” the fund and thought it was important.
Ms. Collins cast her “yes” vote early on, after huddling with G.O.P. leaders, who could afford few defections. But Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who was recently defeated by a Trump-backed challenger and appeared newly emboldened to challenge the president, along with Mr. Husted and Mr. Sullivan, withheld their votes for hours. Later, Mr. Cassidy told reporters he had been holding out for the best possible deal to secure a vote killing the fund.
“I just wanted to optimize chances for success,” he said after voting against the measure.
But Mr. Cassidy’s ultimate proposal — one to wall off any potential federal payout fund so it would be made available only to law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6 assault — was defeated by his own party, with only five Republicans joining him and Democrats in support. That was not enough to get the proposal to 60 votes, the threshold for approval.
It came after Mr. Cassidy had worked with Democrats and Senate officials for much of Thursday and into the predawn hours of Friday to try to devise a viable proposal to block the fund altogether, eventually abandoning the effort after concluding it could not draw sufficient backing to pass.
Still, the vote on his amendment reflected considerable antipathy among Republicans about Mr. Trump’s fund. Joining Mr. Cassidy, the other G.O.P. supporters were Ms. Collins, Mr. Husted, Ms. Murkowski, Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Tillis.
The tricky series of votes was exactly what Mr. Schumer had previewed for days as he threatened to use the immigration bill to force Republicans to defend the president’s least popular actions when voters are suffering in the country’s affordability crisis.
The Senate defeated a proposal by Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, that would have barred the use of federal funds or private donations for the president’s White House ballroom project without congressional approval. A handful of Republican Senators — Ms. Collins, Mr. Husted, Mr. Tillis and Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Murkowski — backed it, but it still fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass.
Also defeated by Republicans was a bid by Democrats to bar Mr. Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing and Finance Agency, from serving as director of national intelligence, by declaring that no official could do that job while also being the head of a different agency. Three G.O.P. senators joined Democrats to back that move: Mr. Cassidy, Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski.
Many of the Democratic amendments offered throughout the day were not designed for passage. They were designed instead as messaging bills to frame the midterm elections and underscore Democrats’ pitch to voters that G.O.P. lawmakers were ignoring the needs of families in favor of the president’s own selfish wants.
Republicans argued that the focus on the fund — which had become a major impediment to passage of their immigration enforcement bill even though the measure was silent on the matter — was an effort by Democrats to distract from their opposition to funding ICE and the Border Patrol.
Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and majority leader, took to the floor on Thursday morning to try to keep the focus on the immigration bill that was supposed to be a point of unity for the party to rally around.
“We are here today only, only because Democrats refuse to appropriate a single dollar for our border and immigration law enforcement,” Mr. Thune said.
Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times.
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