Republicans in the US Senate have renewed their push to pass a controversial $70bn immigration-enforcement funding bill, a top policy priority for President Donald Trump.
However, the effort on Thursday faced a series of hurdles, with Democrats forcing votes on several amendments that highlighted controversies related to the Trump presidency.
The rapid-fire votes on the amendments were dubbed a “vote-a-rama”, and they are slated to include issues ranging from Trump’s White House ballroom to his tariff policies and the US-Israel war on Iran.
“Amendment after amendment, vote after vote, Republicans are going to have to answer to the American people,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
Early on, Republicans were forced to confront a topic that has dominated headlines in recent weeks: Trump’s proposed $1.776bn “anti-weaponisation” fund.
The fund has been controversial on both sides of the aisle, with critics calling it a slush fund for Trump’s allies. Several Republicans indicated that the optics of such a fund could be politically catastrophic ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Senate Democrats have repeatedly called for such a fund to be banned outright, but on Thursday, Senate Republicans rejected the Democrats’ measure to permanently block the fund.
Republican Tom Tillis introduced a second amendment, which would have also banned the settlement fund, redirecting funds to a separate anti-fraud fund within the Justice Department. That, too, was rejected.
Thursday’s votes on the “anti-weaponisation” fund were just the start of several rounds of voting on issues uncomfortable to the Republican Party.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was not sure whether Republicans would defeat every measure, with some members of the party showing an increasing willingness to stand up to Trump.
The situation on Thursday was the result of a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over the Trump regime’s approach to immigration enforcement. Democrats had pledged not to approve further funding for ICE and CBP following the killing of two US citizens during immigration operations in Minneapolis.
Republicans control 53 seats in the 100-seat chamber, short of the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster. They have instead been forced to pursue a lengthy procedural manoeuvre to bypass the filibuster.
The $70bn funding bill had been stalled by the Trump regime’s demand to include $1bn for security upgrades for Trump’s White House ballroom project. The security funding, which roiled several Republicans, was subsequently dropped before the voting started.
If Senate Republicans remain unified, they are expected to pass the funding bill late Thursday night or early Friday. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to take up the bill shortly after.
Source: www.aljazeera.com