The Senate passed a bill Friday to fund most of the federal government and buy more time to debate new accountability measures for immigration agents, but many agencies will still shutter this weekend.
The vote was 71-29. Five Republicans and 23 Democrats voted against the bill, as did Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vermont), an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
The House will not consider the spending legislation until early next week, setting off a partial shutdown just past midnight. The effect of the lapse in funding is expected to be relatively limited compared with the 43-day government shutdown last fall, the longest in history.
Senate Republicans and the White House agreed to Democrats’ demand to break off funding for the Department of Homeland Security from a larger spending bill after federal immigration authorities killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. The bill would fund DHS at existing levels for two weeks to give lawmakers and the Trump administration time to try to hash out a deal to impose new restrictions on immigration enforcement that Democrats are seeking.
Some Democrats said even two weeks of funding was too generous.
“I’ve made my position clear: not another dime for Trump’s lawless ICE operations means not another dime — not even for one more day,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) said in a statement.
One Democrat, Sen. Michael Bennet (Colorado), criticized the deal before the vote. He vowed to vote against the legislation because he had “no confidence the Trump administration will participate in good faith negotiations” to enact the restrictions on DHS that Democrats have demanded, though he did not say whether he planned to hold up the package.
The deal was temporarily held up as senators of both parties sought amendment votes on their own policy priorities. Unanimous consent is necessary to bypass the Senate’s rules and vote quickly, allowing any one senator to hold up the process.
Senators rejected seven amendments to the legislation, including one from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to eliminate earmarks in the bill and another from Sanders to rescind funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that was in the Republican tax and spending law last year and redirect it to Medicaid.
Beyond amendments, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) sought a commitment for a future vote to protect a measure that allows senators — but not House members — to sue over having their phone records obtained without their knowledge. The current appropriations package would reverse that measure, which was drafted in response to an investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Graham said he wants to expand the provision to apply to any group or individual whose phone records are obtained in the investigation.
Graham also demanded a vote on legislation that would criminalize “sanctuary cities,” which limit their cooperation with the federal government on enforcing immigration laws. Graham argued that Republicans should stand up on what he called “an 80 percent issue” for the party.
“We cannot live in a country this way — where you get to pick and choose the laws you don’t like,” he said in a floor speech Friday. “If you want to reform ICE, count me in. But if you don’t get to the root cause of the problem, then you’re really not serious about solving it.”
Graham said later that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) told him he supports holding a vote on the sanctuary cities legislation.
A funding lapse will begin because the House, which is scheduled to be out of town until Monday, must pass the bill before Trump can sign it into law.
Getting any agreement through the narrowly divided House could be challenging for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), as conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus said they would oppose changes to the existing bill before Trump called for them to support an extension. But House Republicans are likely to support it as the president has requested, two senior House Republican aides said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
“We may inevitably be in a short shutdown situation,” Johnson told reporters Thursday night. “But the House is going to do its job.”
House Democrats haven’t publicly said whether they will support the separate DHS funding extension agreed upon by Senate Democrats and the White House, though they do plan to support the other five funding bills.
“We have to deal with the issue of reining ICE and the Department of Homeland Security in with the fierce urgency of now,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) told reporters Friday. “A two-week window — we’ll evaluate whether that’s sufficient time.”
If the House passes the bill, it will set up two weeks of negotiations over the changes to ICE and Border Patrol that Democrats have demanded before DHS funding expires again on Feb. 13.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said he was optimistic that the two parties could negotiate a deal in less than two weeks.
“If Republicans are serious about the very reasonable demands Democrats have put forward on ICE, then there is no good reason we can’t come together very quickly to produce legislation,” Schumer said in a floor speech Friday.
Senate Democrats demanded that Republicans agree to tighten warrant rules, implement a code of conduct for ICE and other federal agents, require independent investigations of misconduct, bar agents from wearing masks and require they wear body cameras.
“We have a set of demands,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) said. “I view them as demands, not requests. And if these demands aren’t met, I will not vote for another penny in DHS funding.”
Some Republicans have balked at those demands. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) described tightening warrant rules as “a complete nonstarter.”
“I expect Democrats aren’t going to be negotiating in good faith,” Johnson told reporters. “I expect that they don’t want to fund ICE and Border Patrol.”
Senate Republicans also say they will have their own demands in negotiations. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) said he wanted to include provisions to crack down on “sanctuary cities” in any deal.
“The fact that they’re going to have the opportunity to negotiate more means we also get an opportunity to negotiate,” Rounds told reporters. “And I think the issue of sanctuary cities and eliminating those sanctuary cities is on the table as well.”
Kadia Goba and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.
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