Democrats will block a government spending invoice following the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis man by a Border Patrol agent, the Senate minority chief mentioned Saturday – dramatically growing the possibilities of a partial government shutdown subsequent week.
“Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE. I will vote no,” Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York posted on X.
“Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included,” he added.
The Senate faces a Friday midnight deadline to cross the spending measure, which incorporates funding for the Department of Homeland Security and avoids a partial government shutdown. The funding package deal will want 60 votes to advance.
With a 53 seat-majority, Senate Republicans will want at the least eight Democrats to vote to advance the measure as GOP Sen. Rand Paul is more likely to vote in opposition to the invoice.
Senate Democrats plan to carry a caucus name Sunday night time, in keeping with a Senate Democratic supply.
The odds of a partial government shutdown had been already rising earlier than Schumer’s submit as a number of Democrats got here out in opposition to funding for DHS within the wake of Saturday’s shooting. The shooting by a Border Patrol officer was the third carried out by federal brokers in Minnesota this month amid anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests. (Border Patrol and ICE are companies with the Department of Homeland Security.)
Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, who opposed the government shutdown final yr, said on X that she wouldn’t help the present DHS funding invoice. “The Trump administration and Kristi Noem are putting undertrained, combative federal agents on the streets with no accountability,” she mentioned, additionally proposing that lawmakers debate DHS funding individually from the bigger spending invoice.
Sen. Jacky Rosen – Nevada’s junior Democratic senator who additionally voted to reopen the government final yr – said she would vote in opposition to the funding invoice “until we have guardrails in place to curtail these abuses of power and ensure more accountability and transparency.”
Earlier this week, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, one other Democrat who voted to finish the longest government shutdown, had indicated his opposition to the invoice. He argued the spending measure shouldn’t cross “without significant amendment” and known as for “effective safeguards against ICE operations.”
Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, extensively anticipated to grow to be the No. 2 Democrat within the Senate, and Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia additionally mentioned Saturday they’d not vote to fund DHS.
The House handed DHS funding individually on Thursday however mixed it with the bigger funding invoice for different companies.
Should the spending invoice fail to advance, different companies that may shut down embrace the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development.
House funding measure allocates $20 million for physique cameras
The House measure handed this week allocates $20 million for the “procurement, deployment, and operations” of physique cameras for federal brokers implementing immigration legal guidelines amid elevated scrutiny of officers within the wake of latest shootings in Minnesota.
House Democrats, already outraged over the earlier killing of Renee Good in Minnesota and different latest conduct by ICE, had pushed for extra guardrails, corresponding to a body-camera mandate, to be included within the funding measure for DHS.
But Democrats’ prime appropriator, Rosa DeLauro, mentioned Republicans rejected her request for the invoice to incorporate a requirement for brokers to put on physique cameras amongst different guardrails.
NCS just lately reported on federal immigration agents’ use of cellphone cameras to movie – moderately than utilizing hands-free physique cameras – whereas conducting operations. The ICE agent who fatally shot Good was filming on his cellphone earlier than and in the course of the shooting. It’s unclear whether or not officers had been sporting physique cameras in Saturday’s deadly shooting of a Minneapolis man.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin recently told NCS in a press release that “providing our ICE law enforcement officers with body cameras is a priority for DHS,” pointing to an uptick in assaults in opposition to brokers.
She additionally mentioned the company plans to increase body-camera entry for brokers with the funds from President Donald Trump’s sweeping coverage agenda invoice handed into legislation final yr, which allotted a historic $75 billion to ICE to hold out the president’s mass deportation efforts.
McLaughlin, nonetheless, didn’t handle whether or not new company insurance policies would require the usage of the physique cameras.
Federal legislation enforcement brokers, together with ICE brokers, should not required to put on physique cameras, because of an government order Trump signed final yr that rescinded a Joe Biden-era coverage.
Last yr, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a serious scaling-back of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s body-camera program.
In its finances request to Congress in June 2025 for this fiscal yr, DHS sought to chop funding for ICE’s body-camera program by almost 75% – proposing a $15 million lower from almost $20.6 million in funding. DHS additionally aimed to scale back the body-camera program’s full-time staff from 22 down to only three.
“The reduction reflects a streamlined approach to implementing body-worn cameras, maintaining the safety and accountability of Law Enforcement Officers, and building public trust, while focusing on sustaining the 4,200 currently deployed devices,” the company mentioned within the request.
The proposed cuts to ICE’s physique digital camera program had been first reported on by The Washington Post. NCS has reached out to DHS for remark.
NCS’s Manu Raju contributed to this report.