Another government shutdown looms as Minneapolis shootings spark DHS funding fight in Congress

The clock is ticking for Congress to avoid another government shutdown, as lawmakers struggle to break an impasse over Department of Homeland Security funding in the wake of last weekend’s fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal immigration officials in Minneapolis.

A key procedural vote on a GOP-led proposal that would prevent a shutdown failed in the Senate on Thursday amid unanimous opposition from Democrats, who insist they will only allow a budget to move forward if it includes reforms to rein in the president’s immigration crackdown.

Government funding runs out at midnight on Friday, Jan. 30. As recently as last week, Congress appeared to be on track to approve a bill to keep the government open ahead of that deadline. But since Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a Border Protection agent on Saturday, Democrats have started insisting that they will block any bill that provides more funding to the DHS, the agency that oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

“ICE is out of control. Killing people, separating families, and terrorizing our communities. I’m a NO on the DHS funding bill,” Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado wrote on social media.

“I hate shutdowns … but I can’t vote for a bill that includes ICE funding under these circumstances,” Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, said on Sunday.

Democratic criticism of President Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown is nothing new. But Pretti’s death, less than three weeks after Renée Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, appears to have been a tipping point for moderate Senate Democrats. They now say they will shut the government down again if nothing is done to curb the actions of federal immigration authorities.

On Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, revealed a set of demands to overhaul ICE. They include:

“We want masks off, body cameras on,” Schumer said. “No more anonymous agents, no more secret operatives.”

“These are commonsense reforms, ones that Americans know and expect from law enforcement,” he added. “If Republicans refuse to support them, they are choosing chaos over order.”

The government ran out of money on Oct. 1 of last year and remained shut for 43 days, a full week longer than any previous shutdown in U.S. history. The political dynamics today are roughly the same as they were then: Republicans need the votes of at least seven Democrats to overcome the filibuster and pass a spending bill, but Democrats say they won’t let that happen unless the GOP makes some concessions on their core issue. Last time, it was health care. This time it’s the DHS.

There are some important differences from the last shutdown. This time, the shutdown would affect only part of the government, meaning that Americans would be spared some of the difficulties they endured the last time —  most notably disruptions in food assistance.

Here’s a rundown of where things stand, what led us to this point, and whether there might be any path toward avoiding yet another shutdown.

How we got here

When Congress voted to end the last shutdown in November, most of the government received funding that runs through Jan. 30. That gave lawmakers less than three months to pass another spending bill to avoid another shutdown.

Rather than trying to pass a single massive bill for the entire government before Friday, congressional leaders opted to split the legislation into three pieces and try to pass them individually. That approach was working … for a while. Two of the bills — including funding for the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Justice and Interior — were passed by both chambers of Congress and signed into law last week.

The third bill, containing funding for the rest of the government, also seemed to be on track to pass. It was narrowly approved by the House last week and appeared to have just enough support to squeak through the Senate before Friday’s deadline. That all changed after Pretti was killed on Saturday. Key Democratic senators, including several who joined Republicans to end the last shutdown, began saying earlier in the week that they will not vote to fund DHS and will use the filibuster to sink the entire package unless DHS funding is removed.

They followed through on that pledge when the bill came to the Senate floor on Thursday. Eight Republicans also voted against the bill.

“Because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE,” Schumer said on Saturday afternoon.

Democrats are willing to pass everything else in the bill “right away” if the DHS portion is removed. If that happens, critical parts of the government — like the Departments of Defense, Transportation and Labor — would remain open while the two parties negotiate over what to do about DHS.

Republicans seem committed to keeping the bill intact. Unless one of the two sides changes its position before midnight on Friday, the government will shut down again.

When asked earlier this week whether Trump supports separating DHS funding from the rest of the bill, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration wants the Senate to “move forward” with the full funding package. But more recent reporting suggests that the president may be open to breaking up the bill, although no agreement has been made yet.

“I think we’re getting close,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Thursday. “The Democrats, I don’t believe, want to see it either. So we’ll work in a very bipartisan way, I believe, not to have a shutdown.“

There are also procedural steps that could make preventing a shutdown more difficult. If any significant changes are made to the bill, either by removing DHS funding or adding some of the Democrats’ demands to it, the House would have to vote on it again once it passes the Senate.

That may not leave enough time to get that done ahead of Friday’s deadline. The House is currently out of session. Its members would have to return to Washington, D.C., on very short notice to approve any bill that comes out of the Senate before a shutdown begins. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson could also decide to keep the chamber on recess, as he did throughout the last shutdown.

The House would also need to approve any new deal that comes out of the Senate, which is in no way guaranteed.

Sen. John Thune, the Senate majority leader, has suggested that Trump could change his immigration policies through executive action, which would allow Democrats to get some of what they want “independent of having to put it into the language of the bill.” Democrats have roundly rejected that idea.

“You cannot trust this administration,” Nevada Democrat Sen. Jacky Rosen told reporters. “My Republican colleagues need to grow a goddamn spine.”

How would this shutdown be different?

The historically long shutdown that began on Oct. 1 affected the entire federal government. The next one would be what’s known as a partial shutdown, because large portions of the government would continue to operate uninterrupted.

Thanks to the bills that have already passed, some of the problems that most directly impact everyday Americans would be avoided this time around. Food assistance, for example, through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, would continue, and national parks would remain open fully staffed.

Even a partial shutdown, though, would be disruptive. Air traffic controllers and the Transportation Security Administration would once again be asked to work without pay, potentially leading to more travel delays. Thousands of federal workers would be furloughed again, which could make it harder for Americans to get help with things like filing their taxes or accessing health care through Medicaid or Medicare. A wide range of other programs, like federal loans, grant approvals and permitting reviews would also be put on pause.

Even if Democrats get their way and DHS is the only department that shuts down, there would still be some significant impacts. ICE and CBP may be able to weather any funding lapse because of the $43 billion in additional money they received from Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill last summer. Other parts of DHS, most notably the TSA and federal disaster relief programs, don’t have that kind of financial backstop.

What do Democrats want?

The list of proposed reforms shared by Schumer on Wednesday is much more limited than some of the rank-and-file members of his party have called for so far this week.

“What can we do to overhaul them? Let me start: new leadership; stopping these surges across the country — not just in my state; training them like they were supposed to be trained; … mandatory body cameras; stopping ramming into people’s houses without  a judicial warrant, and I could go on,” Minnesota Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar told NBC News on Saturday.

“What we need to do is to establish — put some sort of guardrails, some sort of accountability around this lawless agency,” Minnesota’s other senator, Tina Smith, told NPR.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin has also called on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to testify before Congress about her stewardship of the department. Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said he will only vote to fund the DHS if Trump fires his top aide, Stephen Miller, who is widely viewed as the architect behind Trump’s approach to immigration.

What are Republicans saying?

GOP leadership is still firmly aligned behind Trump’s immigration crackdown, but cracks in his support within the party have started to show over the past few days.

Two GOP senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, have called for Noem to resign in response to Pretti’s death. Several others have called for a full investigation and broader changes to the administration’s approach.

“We’re at a situation where this just isn’t safe,” GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said. “It’s not safe for anybody. It’s not safe for bystanders. It’s not safe for law enforcement.”

Whether these signs of discontent within the GOP will turn into actual support for some of the reforms Democrats want enacted remains to be seen.