Even after federal agents carrying out President Trump’s immigration crackdown shot an unarmed woman in her car and handcuffed a preschooler this month, a solid bloc of Democrats in the Senate had appeared ready to swallow their outrage and vote to fund the Homeland Security Department.
But following the shocking fatal shooting in Minneapolis over the weekend, Democrats have pivoted sharply, and are confident they are now on solid political ground as they draw a hard line against approving any money for the agency that has executed chaotic and violent operations across the country.
Despite the imminent prospect of a second crippling government shutdown in less than three months and the potential for a backlash, Democrats say they believe they have public opinion on their side as many Americans have recoiled from videos of the shooting of Alex Pretti and the earlier death of Renee Good.
They are insisting that Republicans abandon efforts this week to include a spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security in a package of measures needed to keep federal agencies funded past Friday, at least until new controls on its agents are put in place.
They also have little choice. Their political base has made it clear it would revolt if Democrats went ahead and passed the funding in the wake of the fatal shootings by government agents. Democrats do not want to risk such blowback from their strongest supporters as the midterms loom and the party sees a strong chance for gains in both the House and Senate. And they see the shootings as an abomination that demands a strong response.
“In my 15 years in the United States Senate, I have never seen our caucus more unified or fired up with outrage and energy to stop these absolutely abhorrent, brutal tactics that exemplify a police state, not the greatest democracy in the world,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said Monday.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Just days ago, Senate Democrats were clearing the way for the final spending bills of the fiscal year to be approved, a rare achievement in recent years. They lacked the appetite for another shutdown, particularly after they came out of last year’s believing they had put Republicans on defense over health care policy. It looked like the spending fights were about to be wrapped up.
But the shooting death of Mr. Pretti after he was apparently disarmed has upended the Capitol as Democrats dig in and urge Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican and majority leader, to break off the homeland security money from five other spending measures so most of the government could be funded past the Jan. 30 deadline despite the outcry over the shootings.
“If Leader Thune puts those five bills on the floor this week, we can pass them right away,” Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and minority leader, said in a statement on Monday. “If not, Republicans will again be responsible for another government shutdown.”
Even the Democrats who broke with their party last fall to bring the last shutdown to an end have said that they would oppose the homeland security spending legislation without significant changes. They have made their position known to Republicans who might have seen them as a potential path around Mr. Schumer. Republicans would need at least seven Democrats to join them in advancing the bills.
“Reform is urgently needed at the Department of Homeland Security, and their dishonest response to the death of a U.S. citizen only underscores that,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, one of the Democrats who brokered the deal to end last fall’s shutdown, said Monday. “I will vote against D.H.S.’s funding until additional reforms are in place.”
For now, Republicans insist they will push ahead with all six bills as a package, putting themselves on a collision course with Democrats and raising the risk that much of the government will shut down after midnight Friday. Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who leads the Appropriations Committee, on Monday urged lawmakers to avoid that outcome.
“I hope we can come together in a constructive way to get this done and to ensure that we do not lurch into a dangerous and detrimental government shutdown,” she said during a brief Senate session Monday, even as she acknowledged that Mr. Pretti’s “tragic death” had increased scrutiny on the homeland security bill.
Though some Republicans have expressed serious reservations about the events in Minneapolis, they will be reluctant to give in to Democratic demands since it could be interpreted as an admission that the Trump administration has acted improperly. The majority also never wants to be dictated to by the minority, whatever the circumstances.
As Democrats have hardened their position, Senate Republicans have suggested a deal could be struck between the White House and Democrats, but Democratic officials said on Monday that no progress toward such an agreement had been made.
Some Senate conservatives have made it clear they do not want Mr. Thune to grant any concessions to Democrats and that Republicans should be ready to make sure the blame for a shutdown falls on Democrats if they hold out against a package of spending bills they were about to approve.
“I’ll oppose any effort to defund DHS,” Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, wrote on X. “Every Republican should.”
There are incentives for Republicans to reach some accommodation with Democrats in addition to sparing the government another prolonged disruption. Fears are mounting within the party that the immigration crackdown in Minnesota and elsewhere is backfiring with voters, potentially neutralizing what Republicans see as one of their strongest political issues. Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate also have invested significant time and effort in writing the spending bills that contain their priorities, and they don’t want to see them die.
But working out any solution before Friday absent some significant retreat by either party will prove difficult. Even if there were an agreement, the House is out for the week and would need to approve any revisions in the package.
Democrats are still determining their precise demands for new restrictions on immigration agents. But possibilities they are discussing include requirements around judicial arrest warrants, elimination of quotas for arrests, visible identification on agents, an end to indiscriminate sweeps and a clear course of action to hold officers legally accountable for wrongdoing. Mr. Schumer described the framework to his colleagues on a Sunday conference call as “restrict, reform and restrain.”
The showdown carries significant political risks for Democrats. They are threatening to again shut down a wide swath of the government and potentially disrupt services such as airport security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency as the nation deals with winter storms.
In January 2018, Democrats forced the government to shut down as they tried to win legal protections for hundreds of thousands of so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought into the country as children. But they backed down just three days in when they determined that they lacked popular support for the tactic.
Though immigration policy is part of this dispute, Democrats see it as a dramatically different situation in which the public is squarely behind them. They say they are willing to take the heat to win new limits on the federal agents.
“We have no choice,” Mr. Blumenthal said, “given the strength of our determination to impose some restraints and reforms on an out-of-control agency.”
Carl Hulse is the chief Washington correspondent for The Times, primarily writing about Congress and national political races and issues. He has nearly four decades of experience reporting in the nation’s capital.
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