The House is expected to approve President Donald Trump's request to claw back about $9 billion in already appropriated funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid Thursday evening.
The White House had described the rescissions package as a test case and said that if Congress went along, more would come. The House's approval would mark the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted a rescissions request to Congress.
Opponents voiced concerns not only about the programs targeted, but about Congress ceding its spending powers to the executive branch as investments approved on a bipartisan basis are being subsequently cancelled on a party-line basis. No Democrats supported the measure when it passed the Senate in the early morning hours Thursday, 51-48, and two Republicans also voted no.
Here's the latest:
A growing and forbidding visual rises: The law enforcement officer in a mask
It has quickly become a regular sight nationwide: immigration enforcement agents detaining people and taking them into custody, often as public anger and outcry unfold around them. But in the process, something has disappeared: the agents' faces, covered by caps, sunglasses, pulled-up neck gaiters or balaclavas, effectively rendering them unidentifiable.
The increase in high-profile immigration enforcement, directed by the White House, was already a contentious issue between opponents and supporters. The sight of masked agents carrying it out is creating a whole new level of conflict in a way that has no real comparison in the U.S. history of policing, and critics say the use of face coverings causes public fear and should be halted.
Administration officials defend the practice. They say immigration agents have faced strident and increasing harassment in public and online as they have gone about enforcement and hiding their identities is for their and their families' safety.