WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are opposing a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of two deadly shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Minnesota, in a move that will likely lead to a partial government shutdown by the end of the week.
In the past few weeks, federal law enforcement agents shot and killed Renée Good and Alex Pretti — two U.S. citizens — in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement surge. Pretti’s death was the third shooting by ICE agents in Minneapolis alone in January.
Tens of thousands of people across the country have taken to the streets to protest the surge of violence by ICE officials. Amid this public outcry to reduce the presence of ICE, a funding bill appropriating $10 billion to the agency passed the House last week. It now rests with the Senate, but Democrats have said they won’t vote for it.
“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling — and unacceptable in any American city,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement Monday. “Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.”
Without the needed 60 votes to pass the funding bill, the federal government would go into a partial shutdown at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 31. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate — a majority, but not enough to break a filibuster.
Senate Democrats have been vocal in their opposition to ICE’s increased activity in recent weeks and appear unified in their headfirst push into another shutdown just a few months after the country faced the longest shutdown in its history.
“Republicans are trying to jam us politically, but the American people want reforms and restraints,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “All Republicans have to do is separate those other funding streams from the ICE appropriations, and we’ll have a deal.”
Jeremy Mayer, a professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, said that while Democrats won the last shutdown in public opinion, they lost on policy.
If they initiate a partial shutdown this week, he said, they “have to win” to appease their base.
“The reason the Democrats lost the last shutdown is that they crumbled — they folded like a cheap suit in the rain and didn’t achieve anything for all that suffering,” Mayer said. “I think the Democratic base is willing to accept lines at TSA if that’s what they have to accept, as long as at the end of it there is something that resembles victory.”
The $1.2 trillion appropriations package up for a vote in the Senate includes funding for a range of departments, including Defense, Treasury, State, Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and Education.
Senator Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said he sees the looming partial shutdown as another attempt by Democrats to push their agenda without a majority of the votes.
“The Democrats have proven themselves to be really stupid on these kinds of decisions,” Schmitt said. “My hope is that they learned their lesson last time that this isn’t a good way to do it.”
Even if the government goes into a partial shutdown at the end of the month and Congress does not pass the appropriations bill, DHS will not run out of money anytime soon. The Trump administration gave the department $165 billion in July with the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, with an estimated $45 billion just for ICE.
It is unclear if Senate Republicans will offer to split off the DHS funding from the rest of the bill and send it back to the House to avoid a larger shutdown. Either way, the House is not in session again until Feb. 2 and is unable to vote on any legislation before Friday’s deadline.
Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, called shutdowns “irresponsible,” but said he doesn’t see any immediate change in the language of the appropriations bill to be likely.
“At this point, we’re all just sitting around staring at each other,” Cornyn said. “We’re waiting to see who will make a decision.”
