The Trump administration’s push for a $1.8 billion“anti-weaponization” fundhas derailed Senate Republicans’ plans to pass a major immigration enforcement package – a key priority of the president’s.
Senators left Washington for their Memorial Day recess with Republicans saying they were blindsided by the Justice Department’s announcement of the fund and at odds over how to rein it in.
The issue of the fundbecame so toxicfor the Senate GOP that there were doubts they could muster 50 votes needed to pass the broader bill that would provide tens of billions of dollars to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol. President Donald Trump had demanded the package land on his desk by June 1, but GOP lawmakers will now almost certainly miss that deadline.
Republicans’ departure is the latest example of the party’s quiet revolt against Trump, whose separate request for $1 billion in US Secret Service funding and East Wing ballroom security also seemed likely to be stripped from the package in part because of opposition from the conference.
The White House had put a full-court press on lawmakers in recent days, with administration officials making a series of appearances on Capitol Hill to sell Trump’s priorities.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was initially scheduled to go to Minnesota Thursday where he was expected to speak at a press conference about fraud, but instead trekked to the Capitol in an attempt to salvage the fund.
Blanche insists violent conduct will be weighed when applying for new anti-weaponization fund payouts
But he faced stiff resistance during the more than 90-minute private meeting, where several senators warned that the party’s major immigration enforcement bill could be derailed with the issue hanging over them, according to a person familiar with the matter. Hardly any members spoke up in the meeting to defend the fund that has become a political liability for the GOP.
“Our members have very legitimate questions about it, and we’ve had some conversations about if it’s going to be a feature going forward, what it might look like, and how we might make sure that it’s fenced in appropriately,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said of the fund ahead of the meeting, which wasfirst reportedby Politico.
Sen. Susan Collins, the top Senate appropriator, told CNN that Blanche hadn’t convinced her to support the fund for individuals claiming they had been unfairly treated by past Justice Departments.
Source: Drudge Report
