The Senate voted late Friday to pass the federal budget, with one significant exception: funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was extended for two weeks to allow for negotiations on new guidelines concerning Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). If no agreement is reached, DHS funding will expire, leading to a potential shutdown.
The agreement, which resulted from intense negotiations between Senate Democrats, their Republican colleagues, and the White House, passed with a vote of 71-29. However, DHS will remain unfunded over the weekend until the House of Representatives meets again on Monday to approve the temporary funding bill.
This marks a surprising change for the DHS funding bill, which was initially expected to pass the Senate with some support from moderate Democrats, despite pushback regarding ongoing funding for ICE. Following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti during a protest in Minneapolis, Senate Democrats unanimously declared they would not support continued DHS funding without meaningful reforms to ICE. This stance forced the Trump administration into negotiations to keep the government running, as the alternative would have been another shutdown in less than a year.
While congressional Democrats typically face divisions, the political landscape has shifted in their favor. A poll from the Senate Majority PAC, which aligns with the Democrats, indicated that a strong majority of voters supported the idea of a partial shutdown over ICE reforms and would hold Republicans responsible if the government remained closed.
