The Senate began a marathon vote session on April 22 to decide on a blueprint to pass a bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The marathon session, called a “vote-a-rama,” consists of senators offering unlimited non-binding amendments to a budget resolution, which has instructions for committees to draft a bill to pass through a process called reconciliation.

Budget resolutions unlock the reconciliation process.

Reconciliation allows bills related to taxing, spending, and the national debt to pass with a simple majority in the Senate and therefore not be subject to the 60-vote filibuster threshold that applies to most legislation.

Last year’s tax-and-spend megabill passed through reconciliation.

Ahead of the vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that Democrats will be offering amendments related to affordability.

“Republicans want to shell out billions of dollars to Donald Trump’s private army without any common sense restraints or reforms. Democrats want to put money in people’s pockets by lowering their costs,” he told reporters.

“We’re going to keep at it, and keep at it, and keep at it,” Schumer added.

The Senate GOP is going through with the reconciliation process to fund ICE and CBP following Democrats’ resistance to do so following the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration agents.

The bill is expected to cost $70 billion and fund ICE and CBP for the rest of President Donald Trump’s presidency, which will end on Jan. 20, 2029.

The reluctance of Democrats to fund the Department of Homeland Security has let to its partial shutdown, affecting agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Coast Guard.

The shutdown began on Feb. 14 after Democrats rejected a bill to fund DHS.

ICE and CBP have been funded through 2029 under last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

Democrats demanded reforms such as requiring agents to carry identification, be maskless, and have judicial warrants.

Separately, Republicans are planning to fund all of DHS, except for ICE and CBP, via a separate bill.

“Republicans have tried repeatedly, not only through the bipartisan appropriations process, to ensure that the department and all the agencies and all the employees and all the functions are funded,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said during a press conference last week.