By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday advanced partisan legislation setting $72 billion in new funding for President Donald Trump's aggressive and controversial migrant deportation program.
The action by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee did not settle a continuing battle over whether the measure should include $1 billion in additional funding for security enhancements to Trump's 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom
already under construction and other Secret Service activities.
• Republicans defeated at least eight Democratic attempts to prohibit the use of federal funds for ballroom-related expenses and shift that money to programs such as countering child sex exploitation and renewing a subsidy to help people buy health insurance.
• Meanwhile, work continued behind the scenes to win the Senate parliamentarian's backing for the $1 billion in ballroom-related spending after it was blocked on Saturday.
• That included specifying that at least $220 million of that funding would pay for the physical construction of the ballroom. Originally, Trump had pledged that this "vanity project," as Democrats call it, would be paid for using only private donations.
• Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives hope to pass the massive bill totaling around $72 billion and send it to Trump for signing into law by week's end.
• Senate committee Republicans defeated all 57 Democratic amendments to the legislation in a preview of Republican tactics once it reaches the full Senate for debate and passage.
• The $72 billion is targeted mainly for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the next three years, even though those agencies have a $103 million pile of unused money, according to Democrats, that was part of a sweeping 2025 Republican law.
• Most Democrats oppose the additional funding unless it includes new constraints on immigration law enforcement operations in order to help prevent injuries and even killings of peaceful protesters or entries into homes without judicial warrants.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Mark Porter)
