Congress
No off-ramp in sight for DHS-fueled shutdown
Washington is charging toward a partial government shutdown over President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda even as senators and the White House scramble to find an elusive off-ramp.
Democrats, Republicans and the White House each say they want to avoid another costly lapse in government funding. But Saturday’s killing of a 37-year-old Minnesota man by federal agents has badly complicated the approach pattern for a massive six-bill appropriations package that the Senate planned to approve this week.
In the wake of the Minnesota shooting, Democrats want Republicans to join them in stripping out funding for the Department of Homeland Security from the sprawling package. Yet any changes would require further action in the House, which is out of town until Monday — after a shutdown would start at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
Republicans are dangling alternatives that would avoid having to change the massive bill, including potential executive actions or an agreement to pass a separate piece of legislation. But Democrats believe they have leverage as Americans recoil at Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in Minnesota and elsewhere.
The captured-on-video killing of Alex Pretti has sparked public unease even from Trump allies in Congress and fueled new questions about how the administration is enacting its agenda, putting intense pressure on Democrats to dig in and fight.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday that the “responsibility to prevent a partial government shutdown” lies in the hands of Majority Leader John Thune and his fellow Senate Republicans. He called on them to agree to strip out and renegotiate the DHS bill while allowing the rest of the package — which would fund nearly three-quarters of annual agency spending — to be passed into law.
As recently as Friday, enough senators were expected to help pass the full set of funding bills, which was negotiated over the course of months by bipartisan appropriators. Now, according to a person granted anonymity to disclose private discussions, Democrats are quickly “coalescing” around a number of changes they want to the DHS bill, which won only seven Democratic votes in the House.
Those include requiring judicial warrants for immigration arrests, overruling a recently disclosed ICE memo asserting they are not required. Other potential Democratic amendments would mandate federal agents identify themselves, require DHS to cooperate with state and local investigations and limit the “mission creep of federal agencies.”
Despite the concern that has emerged within the GOP ranks after Saturday’s shooting, Republicans are moving forward with the six-bill package as currently drafted, taking a first step Monday to put it on the floor. Senators are expected to take an initial vote Thursday, when at least eight Democrats will be needed to leap a 60-vote hurdle.
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters Monday that she did not favor removing the DHS bill from the six-bill package but that there are ongoing discussions about “further reforms or procedural protections.”
“My hope is that we’re not going to get to that point, that everyone would recognize that a government shutdown is extremely harmful and should be avoided,” Collins said when asked about the prospects for a partial shutdown.
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who leads the Appropriations subcommittee dealing with DHS and met with Collins Monday, also told reporters the Senate should pass the funding package as is but that there could be actions taken “within the purview of the administration” to address Democrats’ concerns.
Some lawmakers and aides held out hope that some of Trump’s moves Monday, which included sending border czar Tom Homan to oversee the Minnesota enforcement surge, would soften the ground for a possible deal. Others were encouraged that lines of communications remained open between the parties early in the week.
Republicans are facing their own internal pressures as they seek to avoid a shutdown. A group of conservatives, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), is vowing to oppose any effort to strip out DHS funding. And because the Senate is locked in a time crunch with the Friday midnight deadline looming, any one senator can block an attempt to quickly amend the legislation.
At the same time, there are some Democratic qualms about pushing agencies to the brink less than three months after ending a record 43-day shutdown fought over health care. Some are noting that ICE and Border Patrol will continue to be funded in any case through the GOP megabill enacted last year while other DHS agencies such as FEMA and TSA would be subject to the shutdown.
But so far Democrats are insisting that Republicans agree to rewrite the bill. Democrats are skeptical that the administration can be trusted to take executive action or that standalone legislation reining in DHS would ever make it through the House.
“My options are to do nothing or to recognize that two U.S. citizens were recently … executed by federal agents,” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) told reporters Monday. “We need to at least bring some level of pressure on DHS or on our Republican colleagues to explain to the American public why we are going to continue funding this without any changes.”
Even sending an amended bill back to the House would carry the risk of an extended standoff. One senior House Republican granted anonymity said that would open a new “hellscape” in the funding talks, with the fractious GOP conference divided over the way forward.
“Democrats already had a say in DHS funding during the bipartisan negotiations that occurred on each and every individual appropriations bill,” said a House GOP aide granted anonymity to speak candidly about the dynamics. “If they renege on the agreement on any of these bipartisan bills, then it would open a bigger can of worms.”
Privately, many Republicans on Capitol Hill believe that any off-ramp to be found before Friday night’s deadline will need to come from the White House, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose private thinking.
But the administration said Monday it wants to see the six-bill package passed as written — without the DHS funding separated out.
“Policy discussions on immigration in Minnesota are happening,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, adding that those talks “should not be at the expense of government funding for the American people.”
Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership circle is still weighing options as the partial shutdown looms. While some Senate Democrats are calling on the House to cut its one-week break short and reconvene, there are no plans to bring the chamber back early, according to three people granted anonymity to comment on private planning.
While GOP leaders plan for now to bring the House back next Monday as scheduled, some rank-and-file Republicans are wary that Johnson might re-run his strategy from the last shutdown and keep the House out even longer in a bid to jam the Senate.
Sen. Ron Johnson is sending a letter Monday requesting a conference meeting to discuss the midterm results and a delay in the leadership election.
Johnson has gathered enough signatures to force the meeting under the Senate GOP’s rules and is proposing the gathering for 9 a.m. Tuesday.
“Tuesday’s result was a stunning defeat,” Johnson and his backers write in the letter to Conference Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO. “Holding leadership elections without engaging in a robust discussion and evaluation of how those running for leadership intend to lead would be political malpractice”
Republicans still expect their leadership election to be held Tuesday, where Majority Leader John Thune is so far unopposed to lead the party next year in the minority.
Sen. Chris Murphy announced Friday that he has been released from the hospital after suffering a stroke last week, but will miss “several weeks” of Senate votes while he continues to recover.
“The doctors are very encouraged by the progress I’ve made so far,” the Connecticut Democrat said in a statement. “In order to take my recovery seriously and get back to work on the quickest timeline possible, I will be spending several weeks at a rehabilitation center after being discharged from the hospital today.”
He added that he remains in touch remotely with his staff and colleagues.
Murphy, who was hospitalized last weekend, said Friday that he was “diagnosed with a small bleed in the thalamus region of my brain.” Jose Suarez, the Chief of Neurosciences Critical Care at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, said in a separate statement released by Murphy’s office that the senator “experienced a small hemorrhagic stroke.”
“He has shown tremendous progress, and at the current rate of improvement, we expect that he will make a full recovery following rehabilitation,” Suarez added.
Murphy is the latest senator to suffer a stroke in recent years. Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) were both hospitalized for strokes in 2022. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), at that time a Senate candidate, also had a stroke in 2022 that he later described as near fatal.
The head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said his group will still be power brokers in a massive Democratic majority in a strategy memo previewing plans for next term.
“While some in the press have speculated that a majority of this size undermines our influence within the caucus, they have it exactly backwards,” Rep. Greg Casar of Texas said in the Friday memo obtained by Blue Light News. “Big majorities are good for getting big things done. Our goal is not to win a battle against other Democratic caucuses. It is to pass longstanding progressive priorities that bring down costs, root out corruption, and boost wages.”
The CPC will have at least 105 members next term, according to the memo. If Democrats had a narrow majority, progressives — and any other faction in the caucus — could have used their votes as leverage. Now that presumptive speaker Hakeem Jeffries will have as many 30 votes to spare, Democrats broadly are recalibrating their approach next term.
Casar laid out a “three-pronged” strategy for the CPC to “wield our power” in the three-page memo — tackling legislation, oversight and “holding Donald Trump to his word on populist economic policies.”
“Small majorities give corporate special interest groups the ability to block popular populist policies by recruiting a small number of opponents; a big majority gives us the advantage,” he said.
Casar previewed how the CPC can engage with Trump, noting that “one of the few bright spots for bipartisan lawmaking” was a housing bill that banned private equity firms from buying homes. He noted the caucus should push Trump to cap credit card interest rates, lower credit card fees for small businesses and lower prescription drug costs.
“While we oppose [Trump] strongly on the vast majority of fronts, we should send bills to his desk that would lower prices and raise paychecks. If he signs them, good. If he vetoes those bills, that will propel us to a continued Democratic majority and a trifecta where a Democratic president can sign these proposals into law,” he said.
Casar also outlined oversight targets beyond the administration, urging Democrats to specifically investigate corporations that use customer data for “surveillance pricing,” health care companies that are “taking advantage of seniors” through the Medicare Advantage program and artificial intelligence labs who are “putting jobs and lives at risk.”
“By focusing not just on the Trump administration but also on big corporations and billionaires, we will show the American people we are not just anti-Trump but also pro-worker and pro-consumer,” he said.
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