Republicans Ignore Democrats’ Demands on DHS Funding

The fight over the Trump administration’s immigration-enforcement operations is making a partial government shutdown increasingly likely. While some Republican lawmakers are open to an investigation into the killing of a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis by federal immigration officials, they are not willing to back Democrats’ demand to strip out the funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security from a broader spending package.

“We must have a transparent, independent investigation into the Minnesota shooting, and those responsible—no matter their title—must be held accountable,” Republican Sen. John Curtis posted Monday on X, without mentioning the upcoming DHS funding vote. “Officials who rush to judgment before all the facts are known undermine public trust and the law-enforcement mission.”

Senate Republicans have already signaled they’re unwilling to separate the DHS funding bill from the larger appropriations package like the House did last week. The upper chamber needs to pass the House-approved slate of six government funding bills by 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 30 in order to avoid a partial government shutdown.

The House split off the bill to increase the chance of the rest of the package passing after an ICE agent killed Renee Good in Minnesota. The bill passed last week with some Democratic support. Now, Senate Republicans are seeking to keep the multi-bill package intact as leverage to pressure Democrats who don’t want another government shutdown to back it.

Ryan Wrasse, an aide to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, posted Monday afternoon that the Senate would start “procedural steps that are necessary to place the bipartisan, House-passed funding bill on the floor and proceed as planned.”

Even Sen. Susan Collins, the chair of the Appropriations Committee and a moderate, said she does not want to remove DHS funding from the package; however, she acknowledged that negotiations are ongoing.

“That certainly would not be my first choice,”she told reporters Monday. “I think there might be a way to add some further reforms or procedural protections, but those discussions are ongoing and really involve the leader.”

But the GOP’s strategy to pressure Democrats to help pass the measure does not appear to be working. Calls from both parties have escalated for an investigation into another federal immigration official shooting and killing a U.S. citizen — Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis — and many Democrats insist they will not provide the votes to fund DHS.

“I hope after seeing this second horrific shooting that my Republican colleagues will agree that we have to take action and hold DHS accountable, and the bill to do that is before us right now,” Democratic Sen. Gary Peters told NOTUS in a statement.

He added: “It’s not an all or nothing situation, but they have to choose to work with us and not just be a rubber stamp for the administration.”

The Senate needs to reach a 60-vote threshold in order to pass the funding package, which would require support from some Democrats. Many have already promised to vote against the bill. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Dick Durbin have said they will vote ‘no,’ despite voting to reopen the government during last year’s shutdown. Sen. John Fetterman said Monday that he will be voting for the bill; he is the only Democratic senator to do so thus far, though he said he supports stripping DHS funding from the larger package.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday that Democrats are unified in wanting to advance the five other appropriations bills before the deadline without the DHS bill.

“The responsibility to prevent a partial government shutdown is on Leader Thune and Senate Republicans,” Schumer said in a statement. “If Leader Thune puts those five bills on the floor this week, we can pass them right away. If not, Republicans will again be responsible for another government shutdown.”

Even if they aren’t willing to negotiate a separate funding bill for the agency, a growing coalition of Republicans are expressing rare public frustration with DHS and Secretary Kristi Noem.

Both Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Andrew Garbarino, the chairs of the Senate and House Homeland Security committees, have called for the heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to testify. And other Republican senators, including Sens. Thom Tillis and Todd Young, have called for investigations as well.

Sen. Katie Britt, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, said in a statement Monday that a “fair and impartial” investigation into Pretti’s killing would be “critical,” before urging her colleagues to consider the other agencies, like the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Transportation Security Administration, that fall under the DHS umbrella.

“There’s more money for ICE under a CR. There’s more money for CBP under a CR, so kind of negates that. We’ve also done a lot of good things within this bill, so if you look at everything from body cameras for ICE, if you look at de-escalation training that’s in there, also money in there for IG, for detention, et cetera,” Britt told reporters Monday. “I think that those are all things that all Americans can rally behind. Also at a point where we’re looking at a winter storm of epic proportion, funding FEMA is critically important.”

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz had a “very good call” and “we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt signaled Monday that the administration isn’t going to bend on removing DHS funding from the broader package.

“The White House supports the bipartisan work that was done to advance the bipartisan appropriations package, and we want to see that passed,” Leavitt said, mentioning FEMA funding amid the winter storm that hit multiple states over the weekend.

A Senate Democratic leadership aide told NOTUS that Republicans and the White House have reached out but have not yet “raised any realistic solutions.” The White House’s public demands so far are apparently nonstarters for Democrats.

At the same time, top Republican leaders and the House and Senate have generally kept publicly quiet as the spending drama, and mounting public outrage regarding the second fatal shooting by a federal agent in Minneapolis, unfolds.

Speaker Mike Johnson and Thune let their official and personal X accounts go quiet for over 48 hours after Pretti was shot Saturday morning. When NOTUS reached out to confirm that Thune and Johnson had not quietly issued some stray statement in the two days after Pretti’s death, neither office’s spokespeople replied.

Johnson eventually interrupted that pause by reposting the House Ways and Means Committee’s celebration of the start of the “largest tax return season in American history.” Thune later posted Monday afternoon to laud the Trump administration’s decision to send border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis as “one that I hope leads to turning down the temperature and restoring order in Minnesota.”

“I encourage local officials in Minnesota to work with the administration to keep communities safe and continue the important work of enforcing our laws and getting dangerous criminals off of America’s streets,” Thune wrote.