In the wake of another fatal shooting of a US citizen in Minnesota by a federal officer, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said his party would block a funding package next week if it includes money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The announcement, which dramatically escalates the potential for another partial government shutdown, comes as anger towards homeland security, which oversees ICE, intensifies among the party after a group of federal agents violently restrained and then fatally shot 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling – and unacceptable in any American city,” Schumer, a New York senator, said in a statement. “Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE. I will vote no.”
“Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included,” he added.
The Senate is set to take up the spending measure as part of a broader legislative package that would fund broad swaths of the government, including the defense, state , education, labor and transportation departments. That package, which currently calls for $64.4bn for the DHSincluding $10bn for ICE, needs 60 votes to avoid a filibuster and pass the Senate. Republicans currently control 53 seats and would need Democratic support to pass the bipartisan package.
The looming vote was seen as a potentially painful decision for many Senate Democrats, wary of setting off another government shutdown just months after a painful 43-day fiscal showdown – the longest in the nation’s history – that ultimately failed to win an extension of healthcare subsidies.
But in the hours after fatal shooting, several Democrats have come forward to announce their opposition, including some who had until now appeared ready to vote the funding package.
“The Trump administration and Kristi Noem are putting undertrained, combative federal agents on the streets with no accountability,” Nevada senator Catherine Cortez Masto said in a statement. “They are oppressing Americans and are at odds with local law enforcement. This is clearly not about keeping Americans safe. It’s brutalizing US citizens and law-abiding immigrants.”
Last year, Cortez Masto was one of a handful of Democrats who broke rank and voted repeatedly to keep the government open.
Jacky Rosen, Nevada’s other senator who had also bucked her party during the shutdown, wrote on X: “As a member of the U.S. Senate, I have the responsibility to hold the Trump Administration accountable when I see abuses of power — like we are seeing from ICE right now. That is why I’ll be voting against any government funding package that contains the bill that funds this agency, until we have guardrails in place to curtail these abuses of power and ensure more accountability and transparency.”
Mark Warner, a Democratic senator for Virginia, wrote: “I cannot and will not vote to fund DHS while this administration continues these violent federal takeovers of our cities.”
In a sign of Democrats’ fury, Washington senator Patty Murray, the ranking member on the appropriations committee, who negotiated funding package, announced she would not support the package as currently written.
“Federal agents cannot murder people in broad daylight and face zero consequences. I will NOT support the DHS bill as it stands,” she said on X. “The DHS bill needs to be split off from the larger funding package before the Senate—Republicans must work with us to do that. I will continue fighting to rein in DHS and ICE.”
It was unclear if Senate Republicans were willing to separate the DHS funding measure from the rest of the package, which would likely win significant bipartisan support. On Saturday, many Republicans defended the agent and the department in the aftermath of the shooting.
Holding up the homeland security budget would not necessarily curtail the department’s enforcement operations, at least not in the short term. Trump’s 2025 domestic policy bill, known as the “big, beautiful bill”, included a $75bn supplement for ICE the agency could potentially tap if its funding lapsed.
But Democrats say they must use the threat to try to establish guardrails on federal immigration agents, whose increasingly violent tactics have fueled protests in cities across the US.
“We should not fund DHS without serious reform. We could return CBP to border. We could require warrants for immigration arrests. We could beef up training and require identification,” Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat whose been pushing his colleagues to block DHS funding for weeks. “The list of possible reforms is long. What’s unacceptable is the current lawless status quo.”
Senate Democrats were expected to hold a meeting on Sunday to discuss their next steps.
The funding bill narrowly passed the Republican-controlled House on Thursday, overcoming a Democratic revolt following the death of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month.
Seven Democrats, however, helped nearly all Republicans move it over the line. Explaining their support, several of the Democrats sharply denounced ICE’s conduct in US cities, but argued that the funding bill contained hard-won concessions, including funding for body cameras and de-escalation training for ICE officers.
But Republicans rejected other proposals sought by Democrats, including measures that would have requires judicial warrants for home entries and a provision explicitly prohibiting funds from being used to detain or deport US citizens.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
