US senators looked likely to reject a key vote Thursday to avert another damaging shutdown in President Donald Trump’s second term, with Democrats blocking funding for his immigration crackdown after the killings of two activists by federal agents.
Lawmakers in the Republican-led upper chamber of Congress are being asked to approve a six-bill spending package intended to fund more than three-quarters of the federal government through the rest of the 2026 fiscal year.
But Democrats have vowed to block the measure unless funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is peeled away and renegotiated to include guardrails on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the most generously funded US law-enforcement agency.
That would leave the chamber’s 53 Republicans short of the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation towards final passage, leaving Washington bracing for another disruptive shutdown as negotiations slide toward a Friday night deadline.
“The bottom line is simple: the American people support law enforcement, they support border security, but they do not support ICE terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens,” said Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“ICE needs to be held to the same basic standards that any law enforcement agency is asked to follow.”
If funding lapses, hundreds of thousands of public employees could be placed on leave or forced to work without pay, with economic disruption rippling outward.
The standoff — which comes with particularly high stakes in a year in which the entire House and around a third of the Senate are up for reelection — has been triggered by an incendiary row over immigration enforcement.
Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse protesting Trump’s deportation efforts in the northern city of Minneapolis, was shot dead Saturday by border patrol agents — just weeks after immigration officers killed another activist, Renee Good, blocks away.
The incidents shattered what had appeared to be a stable bipartisan funding deal and refocused congressional debate on the conduct of immigration officers operating under Trump’s aggressive crackdown.
Schumer has demanded that DHS funding be split off from the broader spending package and addressed separately, paired with new legal limits on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and related agencies.
Democrats say they are prepared to pass the other five bills immediately — covering departments such as defense, health, education, transportation and financial services — if Republicans agree to that separation.
Republican leaders have resisted splitting the package, arguing that altering the legislation would slow passage and risk triggering the very shutdown Democrats say they want to avoid.
The House and Senate both have to approve the exact same bill texts before they can become law. But the House is on a break and not expected to return until after the shutdown deadline, complicating any attempt to revise the package.
Yet signs of movement have begun emerging, with some Republican senators indicating openness to advancing the five non-DHS bills alongside a short-term funding measure to keep Homeland Security operating while talks continue.
Lawmakers have also raised concerns about the consequences of a DHS shutdown for agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) during severe winter weather.
The White House has also become more directly involved in the negotiations as the vote approaches, according to US media, with Trump aides exploring whether a temporary DHS funding extension could defuse the crisis.
Democrats, however, have warned they will not accept informal assurances or executive actions in place of legislation.
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