Senate Republicans are finally poised to move forward with their immigration enforcement reconciliation bill. But the final product may not be one President Donald Trump loves — or potentially even signs.
Under the reconciliation rules allowing the majority to bypass the typical, 60-vote threshold in the Senate, lawmakers can propose an unlimited number of amendments. And even after the acting attorney general sounded definitive on Tuesday that the Trump administration was ditching plans to set up a $1.8 billion settlement fund for “victims” of a “weaponized” Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden, a small but decisive number of Republican senators are pushing for language to outright kill the fund.
“I want to make sure it’s not mostly dead; I want to make sure it’s completely dead,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., told reporters on Wednesday.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s promise to drop the plans for the “anti-weaponization” fund — negotiated as part of Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service — was a welcome development for GOP critics. But the promise isn’t enough for everyone, and several pivotal Republicans have sought to add an amendment aimed at explicitly blocking the fund to a roughly $70 billion bill with money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Blanche’s comments were “helpful,” but that she would support amendments to legally block the fund.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters he would oppose the underlying ICE funding bill if it didn’t include a measure to block the fund.
“I think Blanche’s comments were great,” Tillis said. “That’s why I think any amendment to just end the program should be well received, because that’s effectively what he said it is, right? In the end, all it’s doing is putting a cap on it. Nobody should be opposed to that.”
Meanwhile, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, shared on X a Wall Street Journal editorial calling for Congress to “put a stake through” the planned settlement fund.
And Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, told reporters he’d be interested in blocking the fund. Other Republicans have also been critical of the settlement.
It’s a rare instance of moderate Republicans insisting on strict limits on Trump’s power, rather than accepting a handshake deal with the administration — even if it threatens passage of a GOP bill to fund immigration enforcement.
But there’s good reason for these Republicans to be skeptical that the fund is actually dead.
Trump himself said Wednesday afternoon that he thinks the fund is a “beautiful thing.”
“I love it,” Trump said of the “anti-weaponization” fund. “I think it’s so important.”
That endorsement will only further embolden dubious Republican senators, who seem intent on at least legislatively blocking the $1.8 billion fund. But Republicans could also go much further, with Democrats expected to offer votes that would block Trump and his family’s lifetime get-out-of-IRS-audits-free card and further clarify that taxpayer funds should not be used for the White House’s new ballroom. (Senate Republicans already stripped out ballroom funding that was initially included in the reconciliation bill.)
Democrats plan to offer a slew of amendments that could drive a wedge between Republicans and the president. But their No. 1 priority remains blocking the $1.8 billion fund.
“If Republicans try to force through their reconciliation bill again, the first amendment I will offer will be to ban the slush fund permanently and forever,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday.
Schumer had already promised to force votes on Democratic proposals to “lower costs, to restore savage health care cuts, to roll back cost-spiking tariffs.”
But Democrats have also been seeking leverage to block Trump’s selection of Bill Pulte, currently the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to serve as acting director of national intelligence. Democrats could even try legislative language in the reconciliation bill to block Pulte from taking that top intelligence job, though measures on Pulte’s nomination would face procedural challenges.
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Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., has left open the possibility of holding up the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in order to block Pulte’s selection. That would likely be a more natural pressure point for senators to effectively veto Pulte, after Trump nominated him to an “acting” role that could largely bypass Senate confirmation.
Despite bipartisan interest in amendments to block Trump’s settlement fund, the outlook for their adoption is unclear.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters he expects the amendments will “most likely” need 60 votes for adoption — the result of complex determinations by the Senate parliamentarian about the rules of the budget reconciliation process.
If senators can’t muster 60 votes in favor of an amendment, Tillis said he would oppose the underlying bill.
“I wouldn’t support a bill that doesn’t have that in,” Tillis said.
Other Republicans haven’t publicly joined him in that pledge, but it remains a possibility that Tillis’ GOP colleagues will do the same.
But language blocking the fund could jeopardize Trump’s support. The White House has indicated that President Trump could veto the reconciliation bill if it excludes his priorities. A Senate Republican told MS NOW that a lack of ballroom security funding, or the inclusion of restrictions on the anti-weaponization fund, would jeopardize Trump’s support.
Thune has been leaning on his members, asking them to “understand what’s at stake and how critical it is that we defeat amendments that would be corrosive to the bill or undermine in any way its privilege,” he told reporters.
Tillis and Cassidy had both filed amendments to block the fund as of Wednesday afternoon, with Democrats promising additional votes.
In the meantime, most Republican senators have accepted Blanche’s promise that the Trump administration will voluntarily drop plans for the settlement fund. In their eyes, Thursday’s “vote-a-rama” on a series of amendments will simply be the final barrier to passing a partisan Republican bill to boost ICE and CBP funding.
“Because the administration completely withdrew the weaponization fund, I just assumed that that was taken care of,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told MS NOW. “But if there are members who want to beat a dead horse, I suppose we might see some amendments.”
Mychael Schnell contributed to this report.
Jack Fitzpatrick
Jack Fitzpatrick covers Congress for MS NOW. He previously reported for Bloomberg Government, Morning Consult and National Journal. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arizona State University.