US Senate approves deal to fund government and discuss ICE restrictions | US Senate

The US Senate approved a major government funding package on Friday, after the killing of two US citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis upended spending negotiations and gave the out-of-power party rare leverage over Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

In a 71-29 vote, the Senate overcame opposition from a handful of Republicans to side with a deal the president struck with Democrats, an unusual display of bipartisanship as tensions rise nationally over the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in U.S. cities.

The package always must be approved by the House of Representatives, which is out of session and not expected to return until Monday, meaning a partial shutdown of the federal government is expected to begin when funding expires at midnight Friday.

If the House approves the measure quickly, the impact of the funding shortfall will likely be minimal since most federal employees do not work weekends, and Trump has pledged to sign the package as soon as it reaches his desk.

The deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, both U.S. citizens shot dead in Minneapolis amid a surge of immigration enforcement agents, prompted Senate Democrats to block passage of a measure funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE. That jeopardized a broader package of legislation aimed at keeping many government departments funded until September.

The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, has outlined a series of reforms regarding federal agents that he wants to codify in the DHS funding measure, including requiring agents to wear body cameras, follow a code of conduct and stop wearing masks and conducting “roving patrols” targeting people they suspect of being in the United States illegally.

“If our colleagues are not willing to embrace real change – real, strong change – they should not expect Democratic votes,” Schumer said after Friday night’s vote. “We have just days to bring real progress to the American people; the eyes of the nation are watching.”

The Senate approved the package after rejecting a series of amendments, including one proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that sought to repeal the $75 billion in additional funding for ICE provided by Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill” and shift it to Medicaid. The amendment failed, but in a sign of political change, the proposal received two Republican votes.

“We don’t need a national army in America to terrorize people; we need to guarantee health care for all Americans,” Sanders said. Republicans argued it was an attempt to “defund” the agency and provide health care to undocumented immigrants.

Even though the bill easily passed the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the Senate, many Democrats kept their pledge not to approve additional funding for DHS without clear restrictions on how ICE agents operate.

“I meant what I said: I refuse to fund an agency that allows federal agents to kill American citizens with impunity,” Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego said Friday. “We need real reform and accountability on paper. »

Schumer’s office announced Thursday evening that an agreement had been reached with Republicans to quickly move through the Senate five spending bills with bipartisan agreement that would continue operations of departments including Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services through September. DHS funding would be addressed through a two-week stopgap measure, allowing time for negotiations on Democrats’ demands for immigration reforms.

“We’re living in a pretty dark moment,” said Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee who led negotiations on the spending bill. “I seriously doubt that the White House would have agreed to renegotiate the constraints on DHS without the national outcry from the American people.”

The bill is then submitted to the House for approval.

“The earliest action we might have is Monday, so we could inevitably end up in a short-term shutdown situation,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told USA Today. “But the House is going to do its job. We want the government funded, and so does the president.”

The deal was set to come up for a Senate vote Thursday night, but Republican Lindsey Graham reportedly delayed the process for unanimous passage, demanding the removal of a provision nullifying lawmakers’ ability to sue the government if their phone call records were obtained by the FBI as part of its investigation into Trump’s interference in the 2020 election.

An earlier version of the spending bill passed by the House last week repeals that law.

The deal represents an opportunity for Democrats to impose safeguards on Trump’s mass deportation campaign, which began immediately after he took office a year ago and has seen masked federal agents deploy in major cities across the country.

The result has been hundreds of thousands of arrests and deportations, but also killings by ICE agents, detentions of U.S. citizens, and complaints from local leaders and advocacy groups about officers’ heavy-handed tactics and rights violations.

“We’re going to have to evaluate what the real opportunity is to achieve radical change within the Department of Homeland Security. It has to be bold, it has to be meaningful and it has to be transformative,” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday.

But it is too late to prevent several federal departments from closing their doors or reducing their services over the weekend and perhaps Monday, the first working day the closure will be in effect.

If the spending deal were to pass the Senate, its reception in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives remains uncertain. The House passed both the DHS bill and the five spending bills last week, with seven Democrats joining the Republican Party to advance the latter despite calls for it to be delayed because of Good’s killing.

However, several right-wing lawmakers have demanded that if the measures come back to the House, they be paired with legislation pushed for by conservatives, such as the Save Act, which would impose ID requirements for voting that critics say would disenfranchise many Americans.

“EVERY APPROPRIATIONS BILL PASSED OUT OF THE HOUSE MUST BE ATTACHED TO THE SAFEGUARD BILL,” Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said Friday.

Their opposition could complicate the passage of spending measures, since Republicans control the House with 218 seats to Democrats’ 213. Jeffries warned that Republicans will be blamed if their infighting prevents spending bills from passing.

“The demands made by far-right extremists at the House Republican conference are going nowhere and if, for whatever reason, President Johnson bends the knee to the far-right, then the Republicans are going to shut down the government,” he said.

Even if negotiations fail due to the administration’s restrictions on immigration enforcement and insufficient DHS spending, they are unlikely to end ICE’s deportation operations. The agency received $75 billion from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year that it could use, and the Trump administration could also require its employees to continue working during a shutdown.