In Washington on Thursday, Senate Republicans abruptly ended the day without a vote on a large immigration-enforcement funding measure, setting up a delay until after their Memorial Day recess as intraparty anger spilled over into legislative process. The immediate flashpoint was whether Republicans would try to limit taxpayer funds tied to a new $1.8 billion settlement fund that the Justice Department announced this week.
The settlement fund dispute added pressure to a bill that lawmakers on both sides have treated as the next test of whether Congress can quickly keep funding in place for immigration enforcement agencies. Republicans had already moved away from part of the measure that included $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump’s ballroom, after backlash from within the GOP conference. But senators said the settlement prompted new questions and fueled additional opposition from Republicans who were looking for guardrails on how any settlement-related payments could be handled.
Republican leadership scheduled its broader push around the idea that the party would return and decide on the measure after the recess, announcing that it would not vote on the immigration enforcement legislation until they came back the week of June 1—Trump’s self-imposed deadline for Senate action. The timing decision followed a tense meeting with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday morning, which leaders described as intensifying frustration among senators rather than smoothing it.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Blanche understood the “depth of feeling” among GOP senators after the meeting. Thune also later said the White House should have consulted Congress before it announced the settlement, describing how it made “everything way harder than it should be.” He also said it was difficult to separate the settlement episode from the broader political atmosphere around the Senate, including Trump’s recent political endorsements.
Mitch McConnell, the former GOP leader, denounced the settlement itself, calling it “utterly stupid, morally wrong.” In a statement, McConnell asked, “The nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops?” The criticism reflected the argument that any effort to connect settlement funds to payments involving people accused of assaulting law enforcement officers in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was politically toxic inside the Republican conference.
The settlement added another layer to a standoff Democrats say is already rooted in cost pressures. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer argued after senators left that Republicans were not just advancing immigration enforcement funding but also trying to preserve a package Democrats characterized as a “slush fund.” He said Republicans should stop backing what he called the ballroom and join Democrats in fighting to lower Americans’ costs for health care, housing, power and other needs.
In addition to the settlement dispute, the GOP conflict with the White House has been visible in other moves, including Trump’s Tuesday endorsement of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in next week’s primary runoff against Sen. John Cornyn. Several GOP senators have publicly spoken out against the settlement fund, and some have said the president’s intervention and the White House’s handling of the settlement have complicated their efforts to keep party unity while moving a bill through the Senate.
Negotiators also confronted how the settlement money became part of the bill’s political chemistry. The Justice Department settlement resolves Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, and the “anti-weaponization” fund created by the settlement became a main complication after Democrats said they would force votes to block the fund or place restrictions on payments, including bans on making payments to Trump supporters who harmed law enforcement officers on Jan. 6, 2021.
Republicans and Democrats acknowledged tensions were already baked into the calendar and procedure. Democrats said they could use amendments to target the fund during the bill’s budget-process path, while Republicans discussed last-minute additions that could limit the settlement money’s application. Sen. Rick Scott said there were “reasonable limitations that can be put on it,” as Republicans tried to find language that could preserve enough support for the legislation’s next steps.
Funding for security related to the White House ballroom also figured into the dispute, even as Republicans had already abandoned the $1 billion security add-on after the parliamentarian issue and internal backlash. Under the Secret Service request, about $220 million was described as supporting security improvements related to the ballroom, with the remaining portion directed toward a new screening center for visitors and other security measures, according to the report. After Republicans abandoned the proposal, Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday that “I don’t need money for the ballroom,” and he said if Congress did not approve the request, the White House “won’t be a very secure place.”
Still, the bill’s core purpose—funding agencies including ICE and Border Patrol—remained. Democrats have blocked ICE and Border Patrol funding for months as protests of the administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown have continued. Republicans, facing the lack of Democratic support, have used the reconciliation process—an approach previously used to pass Trump’s tax and spending cuts—to fund the agencies through the end of Trump’s term without Democratic votes, but the report said passage would still require sign-off from the Senate parliamentarian and unity among Republicans.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said the Senate’s responsibility should be to focus on funding ICE and Border Patrol. As Republicans headed into the Memorial Day recess without a vote, the question for the next week was whether the party could align enough around how to handle the settlement-linked fund and related security fights, while also maintaining momentum to advance the immigration enforcement funding the bill was designed to deliver.