Congressional leaders are closing up shop for the week without voting on their long-sought immigration budget bill, as Senate Republicans struggled to agree on legislative text amid an 11th-hour fight over a new Justice Department “anti-weaponization” fund.
While Republican leaders had hoped to push the bill through both chambers on strictly party-line votes before leaving Friday for the Memorial Day recess, that timetable evaporated amid a growing GOP backlash toward presidential funding priorities.
Senators had already been considering ditching a $1 billion security funding provision for the Secret Service connected partly to plans for a White House ballroom, which was causing consternation at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
But the announcement this week of the administration’s new $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund further muddied the waters, sealing the fate of floor votes in the Senate on the reconciliation package for this week.
GOP senators leaving a meeting with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to discuss potential restrictions on the fund — which began at 11 a.m. — said they were getting ready to go home without taking up the bill, which will now have to wait until June.
