'Significant blow': Senate rules referee blows up key piece of Trump's immigration plan

Republicans were dealt a severe setback as the top Senate rule keeper called foul on an immigration enforcement funding package.

Migrant Insider reported that Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough "delivered a significant blow" by stopping the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol reconciliation package, which Republican senators have been pushing as the second step to fully fund immigration enforcement after the months-long Department of Homeland Security shutdown ended.

"MacDonough advised Wednesday that multiple sections of the package are subject to a sixty-vote point of order under the Byrd Rule," according to Migrant Insider, adding that the move is "effectively killing them under a process designed to require only a simple majority."

The parliamentarian wrote that the money for Border Patrol proposed in the reconciliation package "inappropriately funds" non-Homeland Security activities.

"Republicans tried to use the Homeland Security Committee's reconciliation lane to pay for programs that belong in other committees," Migrant Insider explained. "The parliamentarian called the bluff."

According to Migrant Insider, MacDonough also determined that rather than a simple majority, a sixty-vote threshold will be needed to pass $71.7 billion in proposed new spending, which was "the core architecture" of funding for Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of Border Patrol.

Another $2.5 billion meant for the Department of Homeland Security was also found to conflict with legal frameworks for dealing with migrant children.

Migrant Insider noted that now Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the Budget Committee chair, will have to "redraft and abandon the stripped provisions" before going to a floor vote.