Anger over a deadly Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)-related shooting in Minnesota has pushed Senate Democrats to threaten a cutoff of Homeland Security funding and a possible shutdown.
In just a few short days, Democrats have rapidly coalesced behind their strategy to block funding for the agency as the deadline to fund the government hurtles closer.
Democrats in the upper chamber were already leery of supporting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill, which funds ICE, but had come to a fragile truce with Senate Republicans in concocting several built-in restrictions on the agency and usage of ICE over months of negotiations.
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But the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti during an immigration enforcement operation over the weekend in Minneapolis destroyed that tepid support. That incident rapidly mobilized Senate Democrats to decry and reject the DHS bill.
Schumer said in a statement that Senate Democrats would not allow the current version of the DHS bill to advance and argued that Senate Republicans “have seen the same horrific footage that all Americans have watched of the blatant abuses of Americans by ICE in Minnesota.”
“The appalling murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis must lead Republicans to join Democrats in overhauling ICE and [Customs and Border Protection] to protect the public,” Schumer said. “People should be safe from abuse by their own government.”
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“Senate Republicans must work with Democrats to advance the other five funding bills while we work to rewrite the DHS bill,” he continued. “This is the best course of action, and the American people are on our side.”
Senate Democrats held a private, caucus-wide call on the matter on Sunday. A source familiar with the call told Fox News Digital that Schumer’s plan to reject any DHS bill without several reforms, but that the broader, five-bill funding package could move ahead. Lawmakers could vote on the package as early as Thursday.
“Basically, DHS is the problem and should be split from the package,” they said.
But Senate Republicans aren’t willing to cave to Democrats’ demands, especially given how high a priority funding the agency is for the administration and how fast the Friday deadline to fund the government is approaching.
Democrats’ position creates several procedural headaches beyond their desire to, for now, shut off funding to DHS. Any modification to the package would require approval from the House, which is not in town until early next month.
And House Republican leadership has no desire to return to Washington, D.C., in the interim, leaving the onus on Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and his leadership team to carve out a solution to the growing funding problem.
While some Senate Republicans are demanding a thorough investigation of the shooting of Pretti, none have gone so far as to demand that DHS funding be withheld.
GOP leaders aren’t willing to cut the bill out of the package just to give Democrats what they want, especially after the current Homeland Security bill was negotiated on a bipartisan basis.
A Senate Republican aide told Fox News Digital that Republicans were “determined to not have another government shutdown.”
“We will move forward as planned and hope Democrats can find a path forward to join us,” they said.