By Jacob Burg
Democrats will vote against an upcoming funding bill if it doesn’t “rein in” federal immigration enforcement efforts after the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis man by a Border Patrol agent, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Jan. 24.
If Democrats unite against the spending bill, the likelihood increases of a partial government shutdown later this week.
“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling—and unacceptable in any American city,” Schumer wrote on social media.
“Democrats sought common-sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security [DHS] spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President [Donald] Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE. I will vote no.”
The top Senate Democrat added that his caucus “will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.”
There is a looming midnight Jan. 30 deadline for senators to pass a spending measure to avoid a partial government shutdown. The bill includes funding for Homeland Security and requires 60 votes to advance.
With a narrow 53–47 seat majority, Senate Republicans will likely need at least eight Democrats to pass a measure, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) often votes against Senate spending measures.
Even before Schumer’s post Saturday night, other Senate Democrats had spoken out against additional funding for the Homeland Security Department after protester Renee Good was shot by a federal agent in Minneapolis since immigration enforcement efforts began there late last year.
Federal officials have defended the most recent shooting on Jan. 24, alleging the man was wielding a gun before he was sprayed with a chemical irritant, pulled to the ground, and ultimately shot by a Border Patrol agent. Critics of Homeland Security have called for a third-party, independent investigation into the incident.
In response to a video in which Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said, “Our message is really clear and straightforward. We need ICE out of Minnesota,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Democrats have “their priorities completely upside down.”
“We don’t need federal law enforcement officers out of Minnesota. We need dangerous criminal illegal aliens out of Minnesota,” she said.
Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who was one of just a handful of Senate Democrats to initially vote with Republicans to keep the government open last year, said on Saturday that she would not support the bill.
“This is clearly not about keeping Americans safe, it’s brutalizing U.S. citizens and law-abiding immigrants. I will not support the current Homeland Security funding bill,” she wrote on social media.
“We’ve already passed six funding bills. Let’s pass the remaining five bipartisan bills and fund essential agencies while we continue to fight for a Department of Homeland Security that respects Americans’ constitutional rights and preserves federal law enforcement’s essential role to keep us safe.”
Senate Republican leadership did not appear to respond to Democrats’ shutdown threats late Saturday night or early Sunday morning on social media.
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who also voted to keep the government open last year, joined Cortez Masto on Jan. 24 and vowed to vote “against any government funding package that contains the bill that funds this agency, until we have guardrails in place to curtail these abuses of power and ensure more accountability and transparency.”
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who serves as Senate Democrats’ chief deputy whip, also said he was “voting against funding for DHS until and unless more controls are put in place to hold ICE accountable.”
“These repeated incidents of violence across the country are unlawful, needlessly escalatory, and making all of us less safe,” he wrote on social media.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
