The Senate advances with the Reconciliation process and voting under the so-called vote-a-rama scheme, which allows voting on amendments to bills that are part of a budget package.

Republicans are leading the process, but Democrats will present several motions – which have already begun – to try to block some of the most controversial projects in the budget package that includes funds for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

A Senate source confirmed that Democrats are ready to present several amendments, including some of the plans against parts of the original Republican project could come from the Republican caucus itself, in a process that lasts several hours.

The first vote on an amendment by Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (New York) was to abolish the Justice Department's $1.8 billion compensation fund. The vote was 50-49, although three Republicans joined the Democrats and voted in favor, Susan Collins (Maine), Jon Husted (Ohio), and Dan Sullivan (Alaska).

The revised version of the Reconciliation bill removed some of the points that President Donald Trump wanted, after the Justice Department confirmed that it would not move forward with Trump's $1.8 billion fund to fight the alleged use of judicial power against some people.

“The anti-weaponization fund, in my opinion, was a magnificent thing,” Trump declared at a conference Wednesday in the Oval Office.

Also eliminated was the billion dollars earmarked for the new White House ballroom, which the president pushed through.

On Wednesday, the Senate voted 53 to 46 in favor of its approval, which opened the vote with the possibility of pushing amendments.

The bill will direct approximately $70 billion to ICE over the next few years.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (South Dakota) has signaled his intention to stop the bill and also announced that there may be amendments from Republicans.

The additional budget for ICE and other immigration agencies has been under criticism from civil rights and immigrant advocates, due to fear that it will increase the persecution of undocumented people in the US, instead of addressing the underlying immigration problem.

“The Trump administration has expanded the control powers of ICE and CBP with virtually no accountability from Congress,” criticized the organization Voto Latino. “Yet, despite receiving billions of dollars in additional funding last year, the Senate is now pushing to give these agencies tens of billions more, without effective oversight or safeguards, and at taxpayer expense.”

What is a Reconciliation process?

This way of passing laws in Congress allows the majority caucus to advance its plans with a simple majority vote, that is, not the 60 votes necessary in the Senate or the mandatory 218 votes in the House of Representatives.

"Reconciliation is a two-phase process. In the first phase, the House of Representatives and the Senate pass a budget resolution containing reconciliation directives to one or more committees (also known as reconciliation instructions)," congressional rules state.

These directives are for three specific actions: 1) to modify the laws that regulate spending, 2) to modify the laws that regulate income, and 3) to modify the public debt limit.

“In the second phase, the designated committees respond with recommendations for legislative changes within their jurisdictions, in accordance with the directives of the budget resolution,” it adds.

And what is vote-a-rama?

The rules of Congress explain that Section 305 of the Budget Law establishes a limit for debate, but in a Reconciliation process that does not apply, so it allows an indeterminate number of amendments, appeals, even points of order and voting for each amendment.

“The colloquial term used to describe the structure of the Senate's legislative activity during this period is ‘vote-a-rama,'” the rules state. “During an a-rama vote, the Senate typically uses unanimous consent agreements to present amendments in groups and set the parameters for their consideration: typically two minutes to identify and briefly summarize the amendment, divided equally between both sides, followed by a vote.”

What can $70 billion dollars be used for?

Senate Democrats published a comparison that allows us to understand how the $70 billion that Republicans seek to allocate to ICE could be used.

$70 billion could fund ACA (affordable insurance) credits for two years. $70 billion could fund 300,000 new affordable homes $70 billion could fund 700,000 high-quality public schools $70 billion could fund child care for 12 million American families. $70 billion could replace all lead pipes.

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