WASHINGTON — The Senate shortly before 5 a.m. Friday passed a roughly $70 billion reconciliation package funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of President Trump's term, ending an 18-hour vote-a-rama that exposed a Republican rift over a Justice Department payout fund that nearly sank the bill. The vote was 52 to 47, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska the only Republican opposed.

The outcome hands Trump the immigration money Senate Republicans have chased since last fall's 43-day shutdown, while leaving intact the Justice Department's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund that The Journal reported Monday the administration had shelved. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress on Tuesday the department is "not moving forward" with the fund, but his refusal to put that pledge in writing — and the president's continued public praise for the program — left enough Republicans uneasy to force more than two dozen amendment votes through the night.

Inside the bill

The package directs $38.6 billion to ICE, $22.6 billion to the Border Patrol, $5 billion to the Department of Homeland Security and $108.5 million for child exploitation investigations, according to NBC News. It funds the two agencies for three and a half years, taking them off the annual appropriations cycle that produced last fall's shutdown and a partial shutdown earlier this year.

Stripped from the final text was $1 billion the initial draft set aside for Secret Service security at the planned White House East Wing ballroom. Six Republicans then joined Democrats in a separate vote to bar ballroom construction from proceeding without congressional approval.

The fund fight

The anti-weaponization fund, which The Journal reported was shelved Monday after U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema froze it on May 28, dominated the floor. Democrats forced an opening amendment to send the bill back to the Judiciary Committee with instructions to block the fund; it failed 49 to 50. Three Republicans on competitive 2026 reelection bids — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska — crossed over.

An amendment from Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina to redirect the money to fraud enforcement drew 12 Republican votes but fell short of 60. Among them was Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who lost his primary last month after Trump endorsed his opponent.

In the middle of the night, a Cassidy-Van Hollen amendment to redirect the fund to law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was defeated 52 to 46. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky called it a poison pill on the floor.

The counterpoint

Fox News framed the night as a Trump win, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune returned repeatedly to the argument that Democrats forced Republicans into reconciliation by refusing to fund border enforcement through regular order. "Democrats would not agree to anything, and eventually they walked away altogether, presumably because they thought that it would serve them better to have an issue for November," Thune said. He called Blanche's pledge on the fund "definitive" and a "settled issue." Murkowski's objection was less about ICE than process: "I believe very strongly that we needed to fund ICE and CBP, but to completely bypass regular order and the appropriations process by funding for three and a half years, to me ... it takes it out of the process that we have always looked to for funding our agencies," she said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York called the bill "rotten." "Republicans refused to permanently outlaw Trump’s $2 billion slush fund, leaving taxpayers to rely on nothing more than a promise from Donald Trump’s personal fixer," Schumer said. NBC News reported the Justice Department retains a separate mechanism — the Treasury's Judgment Fund — that the administration could use to pay Jan. 6 defendants and Trump allies without new authority from Congress.

The package now goes to the House, which canceled Friday votes. Action will slip to next week. Judge Brinkema has set a June 12 hearing in the Eastern District of Virginia to decide what comes next for the fund itself.