Senate Approves $70 Billion Immigration Enforcement Funding Package

By Caitlyn Kim | NPR News

This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.

The U.S. Senate passed an approximately $70 billion funding bill for federal immigration enforcement, without any reforms, early Friday morning, 52-47.

Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper voted against the measure, while Sen. Michael Bennet missed the final passage vote and the preceding 18-hour marathon of back-to-back amendment votes known as a “vote-a-rama.” Instead, Bennet was back in Denver, where he hit the gubernatorial debate stage Thursday night for what he hopes will be his next job.

A Bennet spokesperson noted that Bennet had returned to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday and filed amendments to the reconciliation bill. “When it became clear that votes would not start until later [Thursday] morning, he had to return to Colorado,” the spokesperson said.

Republicans used a process known as reconciliation to pass the measure via simple majority and get around the filibuster in the Senate, but not without a series of votes putting senators on the record on a host of issues from ensuring no anti-weaponization fund is created to blocking construction of President Trump’s ballroom unless Congress authorizes it.

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