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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

The Senate early Thursday morning adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would pave the way for a $70 billion increase for immigration enforcement and the eventual reopening of the Department of Homeland Security.

Republicans pushed through the plan on a nearly party-line vote of 50 to 48. It came after an overnight marathon of rapid-fire votes, known as a vote-a-rama, in which the G.O.P. beat back a series of Democratic proposals aimed at addressing the high cost of health care, housing, food and energy. The debate put the two parties’ dueling messages on vivid display six months before the midterm elections.

Republicans, who are using the budget plan to lay the groundwork to eventually push through a filibuster-proof bill providing a multiyear funding stream for President Trump’s immigration crackdown, used the all-night session to highlight their hard-line stance on border security, seeking to portray Democrats as unwilling to safeguard the country.

Democrats tried and failed to add a series of changes aimed at addressing cost-of-living issues, seizing the opportunity to hammer Republicans as out of touch with and unwilling to act on the concerns of everyday Americans.

Here’s what to know about the budget plan and the nocturnal ritual senators engaged in before adopting it.

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The budget blueprint is a crucial piece of Republicans’ plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end a shutdown that has lasted for more than two months. After Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement without new restrictions on agents’ tactics and conduct, the G.O.P. struck a deal with them to pass a spending bill that would fund everything but ICE and the Border Patrol. Republicans said they would fund those agencies through a special budget bill that Democrats could not block.

“We can fix this with Republican votes, and we will,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the Budget Committee chairman. “Every Democrat has opposed money for the Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great peril.”

In resorting to a new budget blueprint, Republicans laid the groundwork to deny Democrats a chance to stop the immigration enforcement funding. But they also submitted themselves to a vote-a-rama, in which any senator can propose unlimited changes to such a measure before it is adopted.

The budget measure now goes to the House, which must adopt it before lawmakers in both chambers can draft the legislation funding immigration enforcement. That bill will provide yet another opportunity for a vote-a-rama even closer to the November election.

Democrats took to the floor to criticize Republicans for supercharging funding for federal immigration enforcement rather than moving legislation that would address Americans’ concerns over affordability.

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“This is what Republicans are fighting for,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Democratic leader. “To maintain two unchecked rogue agencies that are dreaded in all corners of this country instead of reducing your health care costs, your housing costs, your grocery costs, your gas costs.”

Democrats offered a host of amendments along those lines, all of which were defeated by Republicans — and that was the point. The proposals were meant to put the G.O.P. in a tough political spot, showcasing their opposition to helping Americans afford high living costs. Fewer than a handful of G.O.P. senators crossed party lines to support them.

The G.O.P. thwarted an effort by Mr. Schumer to require that the budget measure lower out-of-pocket health care costs for Americans. Two Republicans who are up for re-election this year, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, voted with Democrats, but the proposal was still defeated.

Republicans also squelched a move by Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico, to create a fund that would lower grocery costs and reverse cuts to food aid programs that Republicans enacted last year. Ms. Collins and Mr. Sullivan again joined Democrats.

Also defeated by the G.O.P.: a proposal by Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, to address rising consumer prices brought on by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran; one by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, to require the budget measure to address rising electricity prices, and another by Mr. Markey to create a fund to bring down housing costs.

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Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is up for re-election in Georgia, also sought to add language requiring the budget plan to address health insurance companies denying or delaying access to care, but that, too was blocked by Republicans.

While Republicans had fewer proposals for changes to their own budget plan, they also sought to offer measures that would underscore their aggressive stance on immigration enforcement and dare Democrats to vote against them.

Mr. Graham offered an amendment to allocate funds toward a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to the apprehension and deportation of adult immigrants convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor after illegally entering the United States. It passed unanimously.

Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, sought to bar Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and other services, and criticized the organization for providing transgender care to minors. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, also attempted to tack on the G.O.P. voter identification bill, known as the SAVE America Act. Both proposals were blocked when Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, voted to strike them as unrelated to the budget plan.

The Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose their own party’s proposals for new voting requirements were Ms. Collins along with Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

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Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski also opposed the effort to block payments to Planned Parenthood.

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Supreme Court Justices give chilling accounts of threats to their safety

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Supreme Court Justices give chilling accounts of threats to their safety

Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett testify before the House Appropriations Committee on Capitol Hill on July 14, 2026 in Washington, D.C.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images


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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The Supreme Court did something Tuesday that it has not done in seven years. It sent two of the justices to Capitol Hill to testify about the court’s budget request for the coming year. The budget has grown dramatically in recent years because of the equally dramatic rise in the number and intensity of threats to the justices’ safety.

Designated as the court’s representatives were Justice Elena Kagan, appointed by President Obama, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, appointed by President Trump.

As Kagan pointed out in her testimony, it was Republican Darrell Issa and Democrat Elijah Cummings who insisted that the court beef up its security ten years ago after Justice Antonin Scalia died in his sleep on a hunting trip, with no security anywhere nearby to respond quickly.  

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“They said, kind of like, we think you’re crazy, you know, that that you have less security than director of the Office of Personnel Management does,” she recounted the Congressmen as telling the Court, “and we think that you have to do better.”

Before that, the justices basically had little to no security. They drove their own cars to work; went to the movies and shopped at supermarkets unaccompanied, and did their private travel on their own. And frankly, they liked it that way, because having security is personally invasive.

In recent years, however, the court has undertaken major changes, including continually expanding the court police force to protect the justices and their homes at all times, and funding additional cybersecurity measures.

And yet, as Justice Kagan pointed out, the Court’s $207 million budget request is less than one tenth of one percent of the entire federal budget.

The justices spoke at length Tuesday about how rising threats impacted their lives. Justice Barrett came prepared with two harrowing stories. First was the day she brought home a bullet-proof vest. 

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“My 12-year-old son was standing in the doorway of my bedroom and he wanted to know what it was,” she testified, “and I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t expect that performing this service was going to put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was and why I had to wear one.”

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Mexico files criminal complaints in US over migrant deaths in custody

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Mexico files criminal complaints in US over migrant deaths in custody


Mexico has begun filing criminal complaints with state prosecutors in the United States over the deaths of its citizens in U.S. immigration custody and during enforcement operations, the foreign mini

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MEXICO CITY, July 13 (Reuters) – Mexico has begun filing criminal complaints with state prosecutors in the United States over the deaths of its citizens in U.S. immigration custody and during enforcement operations, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

Mexico’s government has also sent cease-and-desist letters to U.S. detention centers where Mexican nationals have died, the ministry added in a statement.

The filings follow the deaths of at least 14 Mexican nationals in ICE custody and several others during arrest operations, including the recent fatal shooting of a Mexican citizen by an ICE agent in Houston.

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President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Mexico’s intention to escalate its response to the deaths last Friday, as she claimed that the government “cannot turn a blind eye to the Mexicans who have died.”

In addition to the measures in the U.S., Mexico’s foreign minister also contacted the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding the deaths of Mexican nationals in ICE custody.

Mexico expects the U.N. office to gather information from U.S. authorities, analyze the events and “refer the case to the relevant special procedures of the Human Rights Council,” the statement added.

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A guard punched him on camera. It was still nearly impossible for him to sue

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A guard punched him on camera. It was still nearly impossible for him to sue

Michelle Mildenberg Lara for The Marshall Project

This much is undisputed: On Nov. 2, 2023, a guard and a prisoner at a federal penitentiary in California got into it over a straw sunhat that the officer had confiscated. The man — identified in court records by his initials, J.M. — walked out of the office, as Officer Sandra Munagay followed him. When he stopped and turned around, Munagay “cocked back … and punched me in my face,” he said in an interview. That is on camera. Munagay admitted to the assault and pleaded guilty this January to falsifying records about it.

But the more severe harm came after, J.M. said, in a hallway without security cameras. As Munagay kicked and hit him, she shouted to other officers that J.M. had attacked her. According to a lawsuit, at least three other guards then rushed in, forced him into a blind spot, and pinned him face-first to a wall. With J.M.’s hands cuffed, he says an officer then sexually assaulted him with an unknown object.

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That night, J.M. was transferred to another prison, where a nurse noted bleeding and tenderness in his rectum, medical records show. That gave J.M. more proof than most people behind bars in his situation.

But guards still had near-total control over whether he could file a complaint, or someday sue over what happened to him. J.M. knew they could destroy his paperwork, claim it got lost, or simply deny him the forms he needed. And like he had experienced in other federal prisons, he says, they might punish him for even trying to speak out.

It’s the same dilemma presented to anyone who faces violence in federal prison: Try to file an administrative grievance and risk opening yourself up to retaliation — or stay quiet, endure the abuse, and forgo your chance to someday bring your case to court.

Under federal law, people in prison must go through the facility’s own grievance process before they can attempt to sue. That gives prison staff a “chokehold over access to the courts,” said Colin Prince, a civil rights attorney and former federal defender who is representing J.M. in his lawsuit.

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“The guards functionally have power over whether a prisoner can sue them for their own misconduct,” he said. “The entire system is layer upon layer of bureaucratic insulation against accountability. It simply prevents prisoners from getting access to the courts.”

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