Senators have reached a deal to advance a major package of spending bills to avert a partial government shutdown that was set to begin on Saturday.
The office of Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, confirmed the deal calls for splitting a funding bill for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from a package of other funding bills, and that the deal would fund DHS for two weeks at its current levels.
The deal would avert a partial shutdown that would have affected many of the government’s functions. The House, which is out of session, would have to approve the revised package. The government’s current spending authorizations expire after Friday, while the House in not back until Monday.
In the House, speaker Mike Johnson, told the Associated Press that he had been “vehemently opposed” to breaking up the funding package, but “if it is broken up, we will have to move it as quickly as possible. We can’t have the government shut down.”
“We may inevitably be in a short shutdown situation,” Johnson told reporters later, because the earliest the House will take floor action on funding bills could be Monday. “But the House is going to do its job.”
In a statement on Truth Social, Donald Trump endorsed a spending deal between Senate Democrats and Republicans, writing: “Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security.”
“Hopefully, both Republicans and Democrats will give a very much needed Bipartisan “YES” Vote,” Trump added.
Democrats had so far refused to back funding for DHS unless it included reforms to federal agents involved in Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
Earlier on Thursday, a key vote intended to head off the partial government shutdown failed in the Senate. However, a Senate aide confirmed that Democrats were negotiating with Republicans on a deal that could result in a short-term measure covering DHS, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the US border patrol, while passing other funding bills.
The intention is to buy time for further talks over Democrats’ demands for changes to immigration enforcement in the wake of the deaths of US citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis, which include an end to mask-wearing by federal agents, the imposition of a code of conduct and independent investigations of its violations.
“Republicans in Congress cannot allow this violent status quo to continue. They must work with Democrats on legislation, real legislation, strong legislation to rein ICE in,” Schumer said before the vote.
“Democrats are ready to pass five bipartisan funding bills in the Senate, we’re ready to pass them today. We’re ready to fund 96% of the federal government today, but the DHS bill still needs a lot of work.”
The Republican Senate majority leader, John Thune, had asked the chamber to pass a package of six bills that would fund through September departments including homeland security, defense, labor, and health and human services. The House of Representatives approved the measures last week, but Democratic senators rejected the DHS funding bill following the Saturday shooting death of Pretti in Minnesota’s largest city by federal agents
Schumer demanded that the DHS bill be set aside so that reforms to agents’ conduct could be written into it, but Thune declined, setting the stage for Thursday’s failed vote, which required at least some Democratic support to clear the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold in the Senate.
All 47 Democratic senators voted against advancing the package, along with seven Republican senators. Thune also voted no so that he could bring the measure back up for consideration in the future.
At a press conference in Minneapolis on Thursday morning, Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, noted that the administration had “recognized that certain improvements could and should be made” in the ongoing immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota, but did not specify what those looked like or when they would be implemented.
“For the people out there don’t like what ICE is doing, if you want certain laws reformed, then take it up with Congress,” Homan said. “They’re enforcing laws enacted by Congress and signed by president. The same laws have been on the books for the last six presidents I worked for.”
With the House out of session, it remains likely that funding for DHS will expire, at least over the weekend. That would be unlikely to stop ICE’s deportation operations, since the agency received tens of billions of dollars under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year, and the White House could also order its employees to work through a shutdown.
Shrai Popat contributed reporting from Minneapolis
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
