Congress is staring down another partial government shutdown in 10 days unless Democrats strike a deal with President Donald Trump and Republicans over new restrictions on federal immigration authorities — and some key lawmakers in both parties are not optimistic.
Democrats have demanded that Republicans agree to a range of accountability measures to rein in personnel from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies following outrage over the killing of Alex Pretti last month in Minneapolis.
Democratic lawmakers are seeking, among other things, tighter rules governing the use of warrants, independent investigations of alleged misconduct, a ban on masks for federal immigration agents and a requirement for them to wear body cameras.
Senate Democrats threatened to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security once it expires at the end of the day on Feb. 13 if Republicans do not embrace the restrictions.
Trump signed a funding bill into law Tuesday that ended a brief partial shutdown, but lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say negotiations over the measures Democrats are seeking could trigger another partial shutdown.
Republicans, who control both the House and Senate, said they are open to negotiating — but some have already rejected most of Democrats’ demands.
Some Republicans have their own demands — including cracking down on “sanctuary cities” — which are anathema to Democrats. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said it would be impossible to strike a deal and enact it before DHS’s funding runs out next week.
“We’ll see if there’s a path forward,” Thune told reporters Tuesday. “There may not be. And if there is, it may be a while longer than what [Democrats have] allowed for.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said that he believes a deal is possible and that Senate Democrats will make a detailed offer to Republicans soon. But the parties have started trading blame over another potential partial government shutdown, which would be the third in less than four months.
“If Republicans refuse to make the changes the American people are demanding, they are forcing a Republican shutdown of DHS,” Sen. Patty Murray (Washington), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters.
Republicans and Democrats can’t even agree on who is leading negotiations. Schumer said last week that he expects to negotiate with Thune, but Thune told reporters on Tuesday that negotiations would be chiefly between Senate Democrats and the White House. Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (R-Alabama) will represent Senate Republicans, he said.
The House would need to sign off on any deal, and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) set a high bar Tuesday for support from his members.
“Absent bold and meaningful change, there is no credible path forward with respect to the Department of Homeland Security funding bill next week,” he said in a statement.
Any shutdown would affect only the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE — as well as Customs and Border Protection, the agency whose agents fatally shot Pretti in Minneapolis. But immigration enforcement agencies would be able to keep running largely uninterrupted if funding lapses because Republicans sent them tens of billions of dollars in extra money last year as part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
Instead, the brunt of the impact would fall on other DHS agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which helps states respond to disasters, and the Transportation Security Administration, which provides passenger screening at U.S. airports. Republicans have signaled that they will blame Democrats if funding for those agencies runs out.
“The only thing that would be shut down is the Coast Guard, TSA, Secret Service, FEMA,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) told reporters. “So nobody’s going to get disaster relief, and no American’s going to be able to fly.”
Democrats say that they are pushing to rein in federal immigration agents who have killed U.S. citizens and trampled on the rights of legal immigrants in Minneapolis and elsewhere in their drive to deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible.
Democrats have argued that Republicans will be to blame for any shutdown if they fail to agree to their proposals, which do not go as far as some Democrats would prefer. Those changes include an end to roving immigration patrols in Minneapolis and elsewhere, a uniform code of conduct for agents and requiring them to carry clear identification.
“There are common-sense reforms, ones that Americans already know and expect from law enforcement,” Schumer said Tuesday. “If Republicans refuse to support them, then they’re choosing chaos over order.”
Some former officials who worked on border policy and immigration in the Democratic administration have endorsed the ideas, even if they do not go as far as some Democrats would like.
“Some changes like taking off masks and body cameras are important but I don’t think they are getting at the root of what’s happening,” said Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former senior ICE official in the Biden administration.
“There’s no short-term victories when it comes to reforming ICE or CBP,” said Andrea Flores, who worked on immigration border policy in the Obama and Biden administrations. “But there are meaningful things that will keep Americans and immigrants safer.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said Tuesday that he suspected some of the changes Democrats are seeking will be codified into law. Some Republicans have suggested they are open to considering some ideas — but others have come out against them, arguing they would hamstring federal immigration agents.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said he opposed Democrats’ push to require immigration agents to get a warrant from a judge instead of an administrative warrant because it would add more bureaucracy to the process. He described barring agents from wearing masks as “frankly insulting.”
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) said most of the proposals were nonstarters. Democrats “planted a flag on something they can’t win,” Mullin told reporters Tuesday.
DHS distributed one-page memos to House offices this week defending its use of administrative warrants, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post, but Trump has not weighed in publicly on the idea. Asked by a reporter in the Oval Office on Tuesday about tightening rules surrounding warrants, Trump deferred to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who was in the room and called it “the most ridiculous idea.”
Graham acknowledged that Democrats “have some good ideas” but said his priority in the negotiations would be cracking down on sanctuary cities, which limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
“If you’ve got reforms that make ICE better, more professional, talk to me,” Graham said. “But you should embrace what I’m suggesting.”
“I hope you’re going to press that very hard,” Trump told Graham.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) has also demanded restrictions on sanctuary cities as part of any deal. Voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on immigration and the border, he said, giving the party an advantage in negotiations.
“This is a home game for us,” Schmitt said.
But recent polls show that most Americans have concerns about ICE’s tactics and support some of the Democratic proposals to rein in the agency.
An Economist/YouGov poll conducted after Pretti’s killing found 84 percent of Americans support requiring federal immigration agents to wear body cameras, with 8 percent opposed. Sixty-nine percent support requiring agents to obtain judicial warrants to enter homes, with 19 percent opposed. And 55 percent support banning agents from wearing face masks, with 33 percent opposed.
A Pew Research Center poll conducted late last month found that 61 percent of Americans — including 32 percent of Republicans — said it was unacceptable for federal immigration officers to wear face coverings that hide their identities while working; 38 percent said it was acceptable.
“If Republicans believe that they’re on strong ground violating people’s constitutional rights, I think they’re really sadly mistaken,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) said. “That’s a very separate issue from border security and immigration reform.”
Still, Van Hollen said he was unsure that Trump would accept the restrictions that Democrats are seeking.
“I think it’s going to be really difficult based on the attitude of this White House,” he said.
Riley Beggin, Kadia Goba and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.
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