The United States Senate passed a $70 billion funding bill in the early hours of Friday to finance the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations for the remainder of the presidential term, ending months of legislative deadlock over the future of the country's two main immigration agencies.

The bill, approved by 52 votes to 47 after an 18-hour marathon session, allocates $38.6 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and $26 billion to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), with a further $5 billion directed to the broader Department of Homeland Security. Both agencies had been operating without confirmed funding since February. Only one Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, broke with her party to vote against the measure, citing objections to funding the agencies on a multi-year basis. The legislation now moves to the House of Representatives, where the Republican majority is expected to pass it swiftly and send it to President Trump for his signature.

The funding impasse had its roots in a deliberate Democratic strategy. Senate Democrats, who hold a minority but wield significant blocking power through the procedural tool known as the filibuster — which allows any senator to speak without time limit and effectively halt legislation — had forced a separation of ICE and CBP funding from other Homeland Security spending. They demanded concessions including mandatory body cameras for immigration agents, restrictions on masked agents, and warrant requirements for deportation operations. Republicans ultimately bypassed the filibuster by invoking budget reconciliation, a procedural mechanism normally reserved for tax and spending legislation. Critics noted the tactic was a stretch of its intended use, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune succeeded in holding the Republican caucus together.

The final bill was pared back from earlier versions. A proposed $1.8 billion fund for Trump allies claiming political persecution, which had drawn fierce public backlash and threatened to fracture the Republican vote, was dropped before the vote. Also excluded were $1 billion in requested White House security upgrades and a $400 million ballroom renovation that Trump had ordered. The scale of the approved spending is nonetheless significant: at roughly $23 billion per year, the combined immigration enforcement budget would exceed the defence spending of many nations worldwide.

The passage of the bill represents a major legislative win for the Trump administration's immigration agenda, which has been central to the president's second term. It comes amid other immigration-related developments: a federal judge separately struck down a sweeping freeze the administration had imposed on immigration processing — including asylum claims, work permits, and green cards — for people from 39 countries, ruling the policy "arbitrary and capricious" and contrary to law. The freeze had been introduced following the killing of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., by an Afghan national.