All Senate Democrats voted Tuesday to support Bernie Sanders' amendment redirecting $75 billion in Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding to Medicaid, revealing a significant gap between Democratic leadership's negotiating strategy and the preferences of the broader caucus.
The amendment failed 49-51, with only Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska crossing party lines to support the proposal. Despite the defeat, the vote demonstrated unusual unity among Senate Democrats on an issue that has divided the party for years.
"Instead of funding Trump's domestic army, we should instead use that money to prevent hundreds of thousands of Americans from losing the health care they desperately need," Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, said on the Senate floor before the vote.
The amendment would have prevented an estimated 700,000 people from losing Medicaid coverage under cuts included in the broader government funding package.
Notably, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted for the amendment despite having negotiated the underlying funding bill that included the ICE increase and Medicaid reductions. The New York Democrat's support for both the amendment and the final package highlights the political tightrope Democratic leaders walk between their progressive base and Republicans controlling the chamber.
The vote exposed a strategic tension within the Democratic caucus. While Schumer and other leaders negotiated "reforms" to Department of Homeland Security operations without demanding funding cuts, rank-and-file Democrats clearly preferred a more confrontational approach that would defund immigration enforcement to protect healthcare access.
"This shows where our members' hearts are," one Senate Democratic aide told Truthout. "The question is whether leadership will listen."
The amendment vote came as immigration enforcement has emerged as a defining issue for the 2026 midterms. Democrats from purple states like Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona face pressure to both criticize aggressive enforcement tactics while avoiding accusations of being soft on border security.
Several moderate Democrats who supported the Sanders amendment later voted for the overall funding package, arguing that keeping the government open took precedence over individual policy disagreements.
Sanders has made healthcare expansion a signature issue throughout his career, and the Medicaid cuts represent exactly the kind of trade-off he has long warned against—sacrificing programs for working Americans to fund enforcement operations he views as punitive.
Republicans dismissed the amendment as political theater. "Democrats had four years to reform our immigration system and chose not to," said one GOP senator who requested anonymity to discuss the vote. "Now they want to defund enforcement while doing nothing to secure the border."
The political dynamics reflect broader questions about how Democrats will position themselves on immigration heading into the midterm elections. With President Trump's approval ratings underwater in most swing states, Democrats see an opening to criticize enforcement tactics while Republicans believe immigration remains a winning issue for their party.
As Americans like to say, "all politics is local"—and for senators from states with large immigrant populations or significant Medicaid enrollment, Tuesday's vote forced a choice between competing constituencies.
The final government funding package passed 52-48, with three Democrats voting against it.
