The Senate passed a $70 billion bill on June 5, 2026 to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol through the end of Trump’s term. The vote was 52 to 47. Every Democrat voted no. The only Republican who voted no was Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Buried in the same funding fight was a separate fight over a $1.8 billion Justice Department fund that Republicans tried twice to remove and failed both times.
What the Fund Actually Is
The Justice Department announced the Anti-Weaponization Fund as part of a settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. The fund is meant to compensate people who say they were mistreated by what the administration calls the weaponized Justice Department of the Biden era. The department says there are no partisan requirements to file a claim. Legal experts who reviewed the fund’s structure and the administration’s own public statements told CBS News that, in practice, the highest-profile likely recipients are Trump’s own allies and supporters.
A federal judge has already extended a block on the fund while litigation over its legality continues. The Justice Department has not even formed the five-member commission required to decide payout criteria. No claims have been accepted. No money has gone out. The fund exists on paper, blocked in court, with the structure to decide who gets paid not yet built.
Two Amendments, Two Failures
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer offered an amendment to flatly prohibit the Justice Department from establishing the fund. Republicans defeated it. Notably, the two Republicans most publicly critical of the fund, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Murkowski, voted against Schumer’s amendment too, preferring a different approach.
Tillis then offered his own amendment, not to ban the fund outright but to redirect its $1.8 billion toward cracking down on fraud against taxpayers. That amendment failed 15 to 84. Most Democrats voted against it too, but for the opposite reason: they wanted the money withheld entirely, not redirected to a different program while the underlying legal structure stayed in place. Both the ban and the redirect failed. The fund’s budget authority survived the bill untouched.
A Verbal Promise, Not a Written One
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told a House appropriations subcommittee that the Justice Department would abandon the fund and not revive it. He repeated that assurance this week. He has not put it in writing, and no legislative language requiring the department to drop the fund passed in either chamber. A verbal assurance from a deputy attorney general carries no legal force if a future Justice Department, under different leadership or the same leadership with a different position, decides to revive the claims process once the court block is resolved.
Why It Rode Along With ICE Funding
The $70 billion ICE and Border Patrol package was treated as a must-pass priority, funding immigration enforcement agencies through the remainder of Trump’s term. Because the anti-weaponization fund dispute played out inside the same appropriations fight, opponents of the fund had to choose between blocking a border enforcement bill entirely or accepting that the fund’s legal authority would pass through unaddressed. Tillis and a handful of Republicans tried to use the moment to extract a redirect. It did not work. The bill passed. The fund’s structure remains intact and blocked only by a judge, not by Congress.
Where It Stands
ICE and Border Patrol have their funding secured through the end of the term. The $1.8 billion fund for people who say the prior administration’s Justice Department mistreated them remains frozen by a federal judge, has no commission to evaluate claims, and has no money out the door. It also has no congressional language killing it, only an unwritten promise from a deputy attorney general that the department does not currently intend to revive it.