Senate passes government funding deal despite GOP backlash

The Senate voted Friday to fund most of the government through the end of September after President Donald Trump made a deal with Democrats to carve out Homeland Security funding and allow Congress to debate new restrictions on federal immigration raids across the country.

With a weekend shutdown looming, Trump made the rare deal with Senate Democrats on Thursday in the wake of the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis. Under the agreement, the Homeland Security money will continue at current levels for two weeks while lawmakers consider Democratic demands to unmask agents, require more warrants and allow local authorities to help investigate any incidents.

The bill passed in a 71-29 vote. It will now head to the House, which is not due back until Monday. That means the government could be in a partial shutdown temporarily over the weekend until they pass it.

As lawmakers in both parties called for investigations into the fatal shootings by federal agents, Trump said he didn’t want a shutdown and encouraged members of both parties to cast a “much needed Bipartisan ‘YES’ vote.”

The president’s concessions to Democrats prompted pushback from some Senate Republicans, delaying the final votes and providing a preview of the coming debate over the next two weeks. In a fiery floor speech, Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina warned that Republicans should not give away too much.

“To the Republican party, where have you been?” Graham said, adding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Border Patrol agents have been “slandered and smeared.”

Still, some Republicans said they believe that changes to ICE’s operations were necessary, even as they were unlikely to agree to all of the Democrats’ requests.

“I think the last couple of days have been an improvement,” said Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. “I think the rhetoric has been dialed down a little bit, in Minnesota.”

Democrats demand change

Irate Democrats say that they won’t vote again to fund the Department of Homeland Security until Congress puts new curbs on ICE and other federal agencies conducting the raids.

“These are not radical demands,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. “They’re basic standards the American people already expect from law enforcement.”

Democrats have asked the White House to “end roving patrols” in cities and coordinate with local law enforcement on immigration arrests, including requiring tighter rules for warrants.

They also want an enforceable code of conduct so agents are held accountable when they violate rules. Schumer said agents should be required to have “masks off, body cameras on” and carry proper identification, as is common practice in most law enforcement agencies.

Alex Pretti, a 37 year-old ICU nurse, was killed by a border patrol agent on Jan. 24, two weeks after protester Renee Good was killed by an ICE officer. Administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, originally said that Pretti had aggressively approached officers, but multiple videos contradicted that claim.

Republican pushback

Republicans countered with their own demands, including restrictions on so-called “sanctuary cities” that they say do not do enough to enforce illegal immigration.

“There no way in hell we’re going to let Democrats knee cap law enforcement and stop deportations in exchange for funding DHS,” said Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., ahead of the vote.

Graham held the spending bills up until Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., agreed to give him a vote on his sanctuary cities bill at a later date.

Separately, Graham was also protesting a repeal of a new law giving senators the ability to sue the government for millions of dollars if their personal or office data is accessed without their knowledge — as happened to him and other senators as part of the so-called Arctic Frost investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters at the Capitol.

The spending bill, which was passed by the House last week, would repeal that law. But Graham said that Thune had agreed to consider a separate bill that would allow “groups and private citizens” who were caught up in Jack Smith’s probe to sue.

Rare bipartisan talks

The unusual bipartisan talks between Trump and Schumer, his frequent adversary, came after Pretti’s death. Schumer called it “a moment of truth.”

The standoff threatened to plunge the country into another shutdown, just two months after Democrats blocked a spending bill over expiring federal health care subsidies. That dispute closed the government for 43 days as Republicans refused to negotiate.

That shutdown ended when a small group of moderate Democrats broke away to strike a deal with Republicans. But Democrats are more unified this time after the fatal shootings of Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents.

Uncertainty in the House

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he was opposed to breaking up the funding package, but “if it is broken up, we will have to move it as quickly as possible. We can’t have the government shut down.”

Johnson said he might have some “tough decisions” to make about when to bring the House back to Washington to approve the bills separated by the Senate.

House Republicans have said they do not want any changes to their bill.

“The package will not come back through the House without funding for the Department of Homeland Security,” members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus wrote Trump.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that any change in the homeland bill needs to be “meaningful and it needs to be transformative.”

Absent “dramatic change,” Jeffries said, “Republicans will get another shutdown.”