A majority of the U.S. Senate voted early on Friday to approve President Donald Trump's request for $70 billion in additional funds for immigration enforcement, as Republicans bypassed Democrats' opposition.

Senators voted 52-47 for the USD 70 billion legislation to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the next three years, through the end of Trump's term.

The final vote came just before 5 am, after Republicans narrowly defeated multiple attempts by Democrats and Republicans to add language to the bill that would permanently ban Trump's settlement fund for political allies who believe they have been politically persecuted.

The amendments were a test of party unity that complicated what should have been an easy vote for Republicans who wanted to keep the focus on immigration enforcement in an election year.

Instead, they spent almost a full day haggling among themselves over whether to block the settlement fund, even after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had said earlier this week that it would not go forward.

"This would have been done several hours ago if we weren't having to deal with some of the issues around the fund," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-SD, said shortly before midnight.

Thune himself has criticised the judgement fund, which was part of a settlement that resolves Trump's lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns and has angered many of his GOP colleagues.

But he has been pushing GOP senators for weeks to keep the bill focused on the funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked since early this year, and to avoid adding new provisions that could complicate its passage in the House.

Still, a group of Republican senators pushed all day and into the night to block the settlement's payouts through legislation. That effort came after Trump raised new doubts about the settlement's future Wednesday afternoon - just after the Senate had voted to start debate on the immigration bill - when he told reporters that the settlement is "very important" and said "I don't know" whether it is dead or on hold.

"I'd have to ask the lawyers," he said.

Senators push back multiple attempts to ban settlement fund

The first vote on Thursday morning, a Democratic effort to ban the settlement, was held open for several hours as three senators, including Cassidy, decided whether to support it. The Democratic motion was narrowly defeated when Cassidy eventually voted against it and the two other GOP senators - Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, both of whom are up for reelection this year - voted for it.

The Senate then rejected a second amendment from Republican Senetor Thom Tillis of North Carolina that would also have banned the settlement fund but moved the money to a separate anti-fraud fund at the Department of Justice. Most Democrats voted against the amendment, guaranteeing its defeat, but more than 10 Republicans supported it.

Tillis said the fund is a political liability for the party.

"If Blanche says this is largely inoperative, why not use this moment to codify that?" Tillis said. "Otherwise, you're exposing every one of our members who are in cycle to having to deal with this between today and Election Day, and that makes no sense for something that the DOJ says they're not moving forward with."

Cassidy's amendment to compensate the injured police officers was a pointed rebuke, as payouts from Trump's fund could have potentially gone to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Despite Blanche's comments, Cassidy said that the fund is still part of an active settlement and "absolutely can be used."

The Senate rejected several other Democratic efforts to try to block or limit the fund, including amendments to ban payments to January 6 defendants who injured law enforcement officers.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, said Republicans are now "leaving taxpayers to rely on nothing more than a promise from Donald Trump's personal fixer. That is not accountability. That is a permission slip."

ICE and Border Patrol money has been delayed for months

Enactment of the roughly USD 70 billion bill to fund ICE and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump's term.

Senate Republicans used a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes. But it took weeks to get the bill to the Senate floor as Republicans navigated various obstacles to passage created by Trump and the White House - including a USD 1 billion proposal for White House security and Trump's ballroom that they eventually scrapped and the fierce bipartisan backlash to the settlement fund.

Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department should place restraints on federal immigration authorities, including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks.

After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the department funding lapsed in mid-February with no agreement on changes to the Trump administration's immigration enforcement tactics.

Congress eventually funded the rest of the Homeland Security Department at the end of April with Democratic support, but ICE and Border Patrol has remained without regular funding.

Opponents call fund 'immediate and dire threat'

Nearly all of the bill's funding would go to DHS's Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agencies that are carrying out the Trump administration's vigorous deportations throughout the United States.

Tillis later offered his own amendment to reallocate the Trump fund's resources to fraud-enforcement operations. It failed in an 84-15 vote, while garnering support from 12 Republicans.

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who proposed his own amendment to end the fund, joined Democratic Senator Cory Booker in a friend-of-the-court brief urging U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to maintain the block on Trump's fund that she imposed last week.

They argued the fund "presents an immediate and dire threat to our constitutional order and the authority of Congress".

A number of recent actions by Trump have prompted open criticism from some Republicans, from seeking $1 billion in taxpayer funding for a White House ballroom and security upgrades to his decision to nominate Blanche as attorney general and name political ally Bill Pulte as U.S. intelligence chief.

Cassidy, who lost his primary last month to two Trump-aligned challengers in Louisiana, has proposed a series of amendments, including one to nullify an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service protecting Trump from tax audits.