Senate Republicans are sending a very clear message to the Trump administration: if you want your immigration funding package moving again, kill the controversial nearly $2 billion anti-weaponization fund first. The Department of Justice said Monday that it disagrees with a Virginia federal court order blocking the fund, but that it will follow the ruling anyway. That may sound tidy in Washington language, but Republicans are not impressed. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said the DOJ statement does not answer the real question, which is whether the administration is walking away from the idea or simply waiting to try again later. In other words, they want the whole story, not a press release wearing a tie.
ICE funding got stuck in the middle
The bigger fight is over President Donald Trump’s roughly $70 billion package for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol. Senate Republicans hit pause on the budget reconciliation process after a heated meeting last month with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about the anti-weaponization fund. Kennedy said the dispute has become a roadblock for the entire effort, arguing that the package looks damaged and hard to fix until the fund issue is settled. Republicans say they cannot keep moving ahead if Democrats are likely to offer amendments that would rewrite the package anyway, and they do not want the administration leaving them to guess whether the controversial fund is really dead or just hiding behind legal language.
Republicans want the fund gone, not rebranded
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the only thing that will clear the way for immigration funding is for the president to “do away with the weaponization fund.” That is the plain-English version of the message, and it is hard to miss. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the DOJ announcement appeared to shut the fund down, but he also said Republican conversations will decide what happens next. Some GOP senators are not opposed to compensation for people wrongly targeted by government action, but they want any program tightly controlled. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said the key issue is how such a fund would be administered, while Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., called the whole matter a “moot point” and said Republicans need to move forward with ICE and CBP funding because Democrats have delayed it long enough.
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