Senate Leaders Tiptoe Toward Partial Government Shutdown Over ICE Backlash

Senate leaders on Tuesday spoke in careful, almost rehearsed tones as Congress edged toward an increasingly likely partial government shutdown later this week, driven by a political rupture over immigration enforcement and the funding of the Department of Homeland Security.

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With funding for a large share of the federal government set to expire after midnight on Friday, Republicans and Democrats remain deadlocked over a sprawling six-bill appropriations package that the House sent to the Senate and that includes money for Homeland Security. In the aftermath of Saturday’s deadly shooting in Minneapolis involving federal immigration agents, Democrats are demanding changes to that portion of the bill—and signaling they are prepared to let funding lapse if those demands are ignored.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, called on Republicans to split the appropriations package, pass the five bills with bipartisan support, and send the Homeland Security measure back for revision. “The Senate must not pass the DHS budget as currently written,” Schumer said. “It must be reworked to rein in and overhaul ICE to ensure the public’s safety.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, urged Democrats to “find a path forward that will avoid a needless shutdown and not jeopardize full funding for key agencies like FEMA and the Coast Guard.” In the Senate, Republicans can’t pass a funding bill without some Democratic support, giving the minority party power it lacks in the House.

The standoff has made a partial shutdown increasingly likely because of the mechanics of the process and the Congressional calendar. If Senate Democrats succeed in stripping out the Homeland Security funding or making any other changes to the bill, the altered package would have to be sent back to the House for approval. But the House is in recess until next week, making it virtually impossible to avert a lapse if changes are made unless Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to call House lawmakers back to Washington. The House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of hard-right Republicans in the lower chamber, also issued a warning on Tuesday that they would potentially tank procedural votes required to advance any alternative funding package.

“I think it’s always a risky proposition if you have to send it back to the House,” Thune told reporters Tuesday. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen over there.”

The political pressure intensified after federal agents killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse and U.S. citizen, during an immigration operation in Minneapolis over the weekend—the second fatal shooting involving immigration agents in the city this month. The incident has galvanized Democrats, who are facing intense demands from their base to confront what they describe as unchecked, militarized enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

While Schumer has yet to release his caucus’ full list of demands, Democrats have said they are pushing for a series of changes to the Homeland Security bill, including requirements that immigration agents obtain judicial warrants for arrests, identify themselves during operations, cooperate with state and local investigations, and accept tighter limits on the scope of their enforcement activities. Several of those ideas had circulated earlier in the year but took on new urgency after the shootings. Democrats have rejected suggestions that they accept actions by the Trump White House that would address their immediate concerns without shutting down the government.

“If Leader Thune agrees to split the bills just as Speaker Johnson split them in the House and puts the five on the floor, I’m confident they will sail through the chamber and we will have funded 96% of the federal government,” Schumer said Tuesday. If Thune insists on pressing ahead with the full package, Schumer warned, “he will guarantee yet another unnecessary government shutdown this Friday.”

But Republicans reject the idea of reopening months of bipartisan negotiations and argue that Democrats are reneging on a deal their own appropriators helped write, which also passed the House last week, before the shooting in Minneapolis. They also contend that pulling Homeland Security funding would have broader consequences than Democrats acknowledge, potentially harming agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard, which sit within the department.

Yet the practical effects of a shutdown on immigration enforcement are more limited than the political rhetoric suggests. Even if Homeland Security funding lapses, ICE operations would almost certainly continue as the agency received tens of billions of dollars last year through President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending law, giving it ample resources to sustain enforcement activities even during a shutdown.

Read More: How a Partial Government Shutdown Over ICE Would Impact Immigration Enforcement

Still, a shutdown would ripple across other parts of the government funded by the six-bill package, including the Pentagon and agencies responsible for transportation, housing and health programs. Many federal workers would be required to continue working without pay, while others would be furloughed.

The White House has urged Congress to pass the package as written, and Republicans say Democrats would bear the political blame for blocking a bipartisan agreement. But Democrats argue that the responsibility rests with the majority.

“The fix should come from Congress,” Schumer said. “The public can’t trust the Administration to do the right thing on its own.”

But with time running short, even senators eager to avoid another shutdown concede that the odds of finding an off-ramp before Friday night are narrowing.