Trump drops $1.8B fund as GOP revives immigration bill

The Trump administration said Tuesday it would drop a proposed $1.8 billion compensation fund for people claiming political persecution, a retreat after Republicans warned the provision could endanger a stalled immigration enforcement bill in Congress.

In testimony before a House panel, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said the Justice Department would not proceed after several days of criticism from lawmakers in President Donald Trump’s own party. The answer removed one of the sharpest objections to a broader immigration enforcement package that Republican leaders have struggled to move.

Blanche was asked directly whether the fund remained under consideration.

“We’re not moving forward with the fund, period.”

Supporters had cast the proposal as compensation for people who said they had been unfairly prosecuted. Party critics asked why such a fund belonged in a security and immigration bill, and whether the administration had explained who would qualify for payments.

For Republican leaders, the reversal offered a rare public case of Capitol Hill forcing the White House to give ground on a Trump priority. The New York Times reported that Blanche’s statement followed pressure on the Justice Department to say whether the fund was dead or being rewritten.

That distinction mattered on the Hill.

The package includes roughly $70 billion for immigration enforcement and border-related priorities, according to PBS News and the Associated Press, but the payout proposal had made it harder to keep Republicans together around the larger bill.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the dispute had become tangled with the broader political climate around the legislation.

“I think it’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us.”

Pressure inside Congress

Republicans control Congress by narrow margins, leaving party leaders with little room to lose votes on a bill central to Trump’s domestic agenda. The Washington Post reported that some Republicans still wanted proof that the administration had fully dropped the fund before allowing the immigration package to advance.

Blanche’s phrasing therefore carried procedural weight. A pause would have left lawmakers facing another round of talks over eligibility rules, payment caps and Justice Department authority. A flat withdrawal gives leadership a cleaner argument that the bill is again about enforcement, not restitution for Trump allies and other claimants.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate leaders now have to test whether that argument is enough. Even without the fund, the legislation still carries large enforcement spending levels, unresolved timing questions and possible amendments that could expose new divisions between immigration hard-liners and members wary of another party fight.

Democrats remain opposed to much of the package, so the Republican margin is the main constraint. If party leaders can restart committee work and schedule votes without the fund attached, the episode may look less like a collapse of the immigration bill than a costly detour.

Further demands for written guarantees would point the other way. In that case, Trump’s retreat would have removed the most visible obstacle without restoring momentum to the bill that prompted the fight.