Senate Republicans adjourned for the Memorial Day recess on May 21 without final passage of a roughly $72 billion reconciliation bill that would fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection, after internal GOP divisions over $1 billion in Secret Service security funding and a $1.8 billion Department of Justice (DOJ) “anti-weaponization” settlement fund.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) filed a unanimous consent request to adjourn the chamber and hold pro forma sessions—brief meetings during which no legislative business is conducted—on May 22, May 26, and May 28. The Senate is scheduled to reconvene on June 1.
At issue were two Republican-pushed provisions related to $1 billion in Secret Service security funding tied to the White House East Wing project, which includes a planned $400 million ballroom, and the $1.8 billion settlement fund.
The settlement fund, also known as the “anti-weaponization fund,” was announced this week after President Donald Trump agreed to drop a lawsuit he had filed against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.
He brought the case after an IRS contractor leaked his returns and agreed to drop it in exchange for the government creating the fund, according to the DOJ.
Republican senators emerged from a Thursday meeting with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on potential parameters for the settlement fund. Asked by reporters whether the Senate would vote on the package before recess, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said simply, “We’re going home.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said, “I don’t even know.”
The departure risks missing President Donald Trump’s June 1 deadline for passage of the bill. Thune told reporters Thursday that senators had questions about the settlement fund and wanted to know “how we might make sure that it’s fenced in appropriately.”
A representative from Thune’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times prior to publication.
Asked at the White House on Thursday whether he was losing control of the Senate, Trump responded, “I don’t know, I really don’t know. I can tell you—I only do what’s right.”
The White House, asked for comment on the Senate’s failure to pass the bill before recess, directed The Epoch Times to a Truth Social post from Trump on the Railway Safety Act, which was unrelated to the reconciliation bill.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), joined by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), held an afternoon press conference framing the delay as a Democratic win.
“This afternoon, Republicans—so divided, so dysfunctional, so disorganized—are fleeing Washington,” Schumer said. “Republicans are in retreat, but Democrats are moving full steam ahead.”
Sen. Merkley called the settlement fund “a world record in self-dealing,” and said the broader bill devoted $70 billion to immigration enforcement but “not a penny” to health care, housing, education, or gas prices.
In a question-and-answer session, Schumer outlined Democratic plans to continue opposing the settlement fund. “We’ll do everything we can to stop this slush fund—whether it’s in the courts, whether it’s legislative, whether it’s through reconciliation or any other legislative means,” he said.
Asked about Democratic messaging heading into the November midterm elections, Schumer accused the Republicans of corruption and linked that to higher costs for consumers. “Corruption often leads to the high prices,” he said.
Republicans turned to reconciliation after Senate Democrats blocked funding for ICE and Border Patrol through the regular appropriations process beginning in mid-February. Democrats had demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in Minnesota earlier this year. Congress passed bipartisan legislation to reopen the rest of the Department of Homeland Security on April 30 after a record-long partial government shutdown.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
