El Senado aprueba paquete de $70 mil millones para el ICE y rechaza límites anti-weaponización

The U.S. Senate passed S. 2 by 52-47 on June 5, 2026, approving a $70 billion immigration enforcement package after a nearly 19-hour vote-a-ramaVote-a-RamaA Senate procedure during budget reconciliation where any senator may offer unlimited amendments in rapid succession, with each vote taking about 15 minutes.Key ConceptVote-a-RamaA Senate procedure during budget reconciliation where any senator may offer unlimited amendments in rapid succession, with each vote taking about 15 minutes.Open conceptBookmark that ran from Thursday morning through early Friday. It's the second budget reconciliationBudget ReconciliationA congressional process that allows spending and tax legislation to pass the Senate with 51 votes instead of the normal 60.Key ConceptBudget ReconciliationA congressional process that allows spending and tax legislation to pass the Senate with 51 votes instead of the normal 60.Open conceptBookmark bill Republicans passed in 2026, separate from H.R. 1, the "One Big Beautiful Bill," which Trump signed on July 4, 2025 and which provided $170 billion for immigration enforcement over four years.

The bill allocates $38.6 billion for ICE, $22.6 billion for Customs and Border Protection, $5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, and $108.5 million for child exploitation investigations. All funding runs through fiscal year 2029.

ICE didn't exist before 2003. Congress created it under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, signed by President George W. Bush on Nov. 25, 2002, which merged the Immigration and Naturalization Service's enforcement arm with the U.S. Customs Service into a new Department of Homeland Security. The merger was a direct response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the finding that immigration enforcement and customs functions had operated in separate silos. ICE absorbed roughly 15,000 employees from those two predecessor agencies. S. 2's $38.6 billion ICE allocation in a single bill exceeds what Congress appropriated for the agency in its first 15 years of existence combined.

Senate Republicans chose the budget reconciliation route after the Department of Homeland Security entered a partial shutdown on February 14, 2026, when Congress failed to pass a regular appropriations bill. Democrats refused to fund ICE and CBP without reforms, including judicial warrant requirements for home entries and a ban on agents wearing masks during operations. That DHS shutdown became the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history by March 29, 2026, surpassing the record set in late 2025.

Reconciliation let Republicans pass funding with a simple 51-vote majority instead of the 60 votes required to overcome a Senate filibusterFilibusterA Senate procedure allowing unlimited debate to delay or block legislation, requiring 60 votes to overcome.Key ConceptFilibusterA Senate procedure allowing unlimited debate to delay or block legislation, requiring 60 votes to overcome.Open conceptBookmark. Congress created the reconciliation process in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 as a tool to align federal spending with budget resolutions. Since 1985, both parties have used it for high-stakes legislation: Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010 via reconciliation, and Republicans used it to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017. The Byrd RuleByrd RuleA Senate rule that bars non-budget provisions from being included in reconciliation bills, enforced by the Senate Parliamentarian.Key ConceptByrd RuleA Senate rule that bars non-budget provisions from being included in reconciliation bills, enforced by the Senate Parliamentarian.Open conceptBookmark limits reconciliation to mandatory spendingMandatory SpendingFederal spending set by permanent law rather than annual appropriations votes.Key ConceptMandatory SpendingFederal spending set by permanent law rather than annual appropriations votes.Open conceptBookmark, revenues, and the debt limit, which is why Democrats' desired policy reforms couldn't be included even if Republicans had agreed to them.

The biggest fight wasn't the bill's content. A $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" the Trump administration announced in May 2026, as part of a settlement of Trump's civil lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, nearly collapsed the bill for weeks. The fund's claimed legal basis rested on the Judgment Fund, a standing congressional appropriation that pays court judgments against the federal government. Rupa Bhattacharyya, legal director at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, told CBS News the fund was legally distinguishable from prior settlements because it lacked judicial oversight, directed payments to third parties with no relationship to the original suit, and was created without court approval.

The Guardian cited former DOJ officials calling it "corrupt" and a "slush fund" for Trump allies. A federal judge had already agreed to review the fund before the Senate vote.

The vote-a-rama lasted nearly 19 hours and included 29 amendments and motions. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer opened with a motion to send the bill back to the Judiciary Committee with instructions to eliminate the fund, a procedural move requiring only a simple majority. That motion failed 49-50, with three Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, and Jon Husted of Ohio, voting yes.

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana introduced a separate amendment that would have restricted fund payouts to law enforcement officers killed or injured on Jan. 6 and offset costs with ICE cuts. The amendment required 60 votes under the Byrd Rule, guaranteeing its defeat. Cassidy's decision to vote against Schumer's initial motion cleared the way for Sullivan and Husted to vote yes without risking the bill's survival.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska's senior senator who won reelection in 2022 via ranked-choice voting while fending off a Trump-backed challenger, was the only Republican to vote against final passage. She told NBC News she opposed the bill because it circumvented the Senate's appropriations process, which normally requires bipartisan negotiation and annual review of agency budgets. She also objected to mandatory multi-year funding, which she said set a bad precedent by removing Congress's year-to-year leverage over agency conduct.

Murkowski had also voted against the April 2026 budget resolution that created the reconciliation vehicle, joining only Sen. Rand Paul in opposing it. Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado missed the final vote.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, elected to lead the Republican caucus on Nov. 13, 2024, managed the floor for weeks. He'd been pushing Republican colleagues to keep the bill narrowly focused on ICE and CBP funding and avoid provisions that could complicate House passage. "This would have been done several hours ago if we weren't having to deal with some of the issues around the fund," Thune told reporters shortly before midnight on June 4.

Thune also steered around a $1 billion line item for White House security upgrades connected to Trump's ballroom project that earlier drafts had included. That provision drew bipartisan ridicule and was removed before floor debate began.

The AFL-CIO called the bill "a blank check for mass deportation" and estimated the funding would cost $530 per U.S. household above the $170 billion already appropriated in the One Big Beautiful Bill. The American Immigration Council found that ICE's budget nearly tripled since 2003, from $3.3 billion to $9.6 billion in FY 2024, before the two 2025-2026 reconciliation packages added more in two years than ICE received in the prior two decades.

Democrats also demanded warrant requirements and use-of-force standards after ICE and CBP agents fatally shot two protesters during a Minneapolis enforcement operation in January 2026, the confrontation that triggered the DHS partial shutdown. Republicans rejected all accountability conditions as outside reconciliation's scope under the Byrd Rule.

The bill heads to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson initially called an earlier reconciliation proposal a "joke" before aligning with Thune's two-part strategy. House leaders canceled floor votes on Friday, June 5, meaning a House vote is expected the following week. If the House passes the bill without changes, it goes directly to Trump for his signature. Any House amendments would require the Senate to vote again, the same dynamic that derailed a March 2026 DHS funding package.

Republicans structured the bill to fund ICE and CBP through mandatory spending, normally the domain of entitlements like Social Security. That insulates the agencies from future government shutdowns or Democratic appropriations maneuvers, and it's exactly what Murkowski objected to: converting discretionary law enforcement funding into mandatory spending removes Congress's annual power of the purse over those agencies.