{"id":198745,"date":"2026-01-31T09:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T09:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-senate-scrambles-to-reach-funding-deal-as-partial-shutdown-deadline-looms-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T09:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T09:18:07","slug":"us-senate-scrambles-to-reach-funding-deal-as-partial-shutdown-deadline-looms-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-senate-scrambles-to-reach-funding-deal-as-partial-shutdown-deadline-looms-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"US Senate scrambles to reach funding deal as partial shutdown deadline looms – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Partial shutdown of government still expected to begin after midnight Friday, lasting at least through weekend
The US Senate<\/a> approved a major government funding package on Friday, after the killings of two US citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis upended spending talks and gave the out-of-power party rare leverage over Donald Trump\u2019s mass deportation campaign.
In a 71-29 tally, the Senate overcame opposition from a handful of Republicans<\/a> to rally behind a deal the president struck with Democrats, an unusual display of bipartisanship as tensions rise nationally over the presence of Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents in US cities.
The package still <\/strong>needs approval by the House of Representatives, which is out of session and not scheduled to return until Monday, meaning a partial shutdown of the federal government was expected to begin when funding lapses at midnight Friday.
If the House approves the measure swiftly, the impact of the funding lapse is likely to be minimal as most federal employees don\u2019t work over the weekend, and Trump has pledged to sign the package into law as soon as it reaches his desk.
The deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, both US citizens shot dead in Minneapolis amid a surge of immigration enforcement agents, prompted Senate Democrats<\/a> to block passage of a measure funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE. That jeopardized a broader legislative package intended to continue funding through September for a slew of government departments.
The Senate\u2019s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, outlined a series of reforms<\/a> to federal agents he wants codified in the DHS\u2019s funding measure, including the requirement that officers wear body cameras, abide by a code of conduct and cease wearing masks and conducting \u201croving patrols\u201d aimed at people they suspect of being illegally in the United States.
\u201cIf our colleagues are not willing to enact real change \u2013 real, strong change \u2013 they should not expect Democratic votes,\u201d Schumer said, following the Friday evening vote. \u201cWe have only a few days to deliver real progress for the American people; the eyes of the nation are watching.\u201d
The Senate approved the package after it rejected a series of amendments, including one offered by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont that sought to repeal the $75bn in additional funding for ICE provided by Trump\u2019s so-called \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d and transfer it to Medicaid. The amendment failed, but in a sign of the shifting politics, the proposal earned two Republican votes.
\u201cWe don\u2019t need a domestic army in America to terrorize people; we need to guarantee healthcare to all Americans,\u201d Sanders said. Republicans argued it was an attempt to \u201cdefund\u201d the agency and give healthcare to undocumented immigrants.
While the package easily cleared the 60-vote threshold needed to pass in the Senate, many Democrats stuck to their pledge not to approve any additional funding for DHS without clear restrictions on the way ICE agents operate.
\u201cI meant what I said: I refuse to fund an agency that lets federal agents kill US citizens with impunity,\u201d Arizona senator Ruben Gallego said on Friday. \u201cWe need real reform and accountability on paper.\u201d
Schumer\u2019s office announced on Thursday evening that a deal had been reached with Republicans to quickly pass through the Senate five spending bills that had bipartisan agreement and would continue the operations of departments including defense, labor, and health and human services through September. Funding for the DHS would be addressed with a stopgap measure lasting two weeks, which would allow time for negotiations over the Democrats\u2019s demands for reforms to immigration enforcement.
\u201cThis is a pretty somber moment that we are in,\u201d said senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the appropriations committee who led negotiations on the spending bill. \u201cI very seriously doubt the White House would have agreed to renegotiate constraints on DHS, if not for the national outcry from the American people.\u201d
The bill next goes to the House for approval.
\u201cThe earliest floor action we could have is Monday, so we could inevitably be in a short shutdown situation,\u201d the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, told USA Today. \u201cBut the House is going to do its job. We want to get the government funded, as does the president.\u201d
The agreement had been expected to be put to a vote by the Senate on Thursday evening, but Republican Lindsey Graham reportedly held up the process of passing it unanimously, demanding the removal of a provision undoing the ability of lawmakers to sue the government if their phone call records were obtained by the FBI as part of its investigation into Trump\u2019s 2020 election meddling.
An earlier version of the spending bill passed by the House last week repeals that law.
The agreement represents an opportunity for Democrats to impose guardrails on Trump\u2019s mass deportation campaign, which began immediately after he took office a year ago and has seen masked federal agents fan out to major cities nationwide.
The result has been hundreds of thousands<\/a> of arrests and deportations, but also killings by ICE agents<\/a>, detentions<\/a> of US citizens<\/a>, and complaints from local leaders and advocacy groups of brutal tactics by officers and violations of rights.
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to evaluate what the real opportunity is to get dramatic change at the Department of Homeland Security. It needs to be bold, it needs to be meaningful, and it needs to be transformative,\u201d the Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said on Friday.
But it has come together too late to prevent several federal government departments from closing their doors or curtailing services over the weekend and perhaps on Monday, the first business day when the shutdown will be in effect.
Its reception in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives remains uncertain. The chamber had passed both the DHS bill and the five spending bills last week, with seven Democrats joining with the GOP<\/a> to advance the latter despite calls that it be held up over Good\u2019s killing.
However, several rightwing lawmakers have demanded that if the measures return to the chamber, they be coupled with legislation conservatives have demanded such as the Save Act<\/a>, which would impose identification requirements to vote that critics say would disenfranchise swaths of Americans.
\u201cEVERY SINGLE APPROPRIATIONS BILL THAT IS VOTED OUT OF THE HOUSE MUST HAVE THE SAVE ACT ATTACHED,\u201d the Florida congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna said Friday.
Their opposition could complicate passage of the spending measures, since Republicans control the chamber with 218 seats to the Democrats\u2019 213. Jeffries warned that Republicans will be blamed if their infighting prevents passage of the spending bills.
\u201cThe demands being made by far-right extremists in the House Republican conference are going nowhere, and if, for whatever reason, Speaker Johnson bends the knee to the far right, then Republicans are going to shut the government down,\u201d he said.
Even if negotiations stall over restrictions on the administration\u2019s immigration crackdown and DHS spending lapses, it is unlikely to halt ICE\u2019s deportation operations. The agency received $75bn from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year that it could use, and the Trump administration<\/a> could also mandate that its employees continue working during a shutdown.<\/p>\n

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Partial shutdown of government still expected to begin after midnight Friday, lasting at least through weekendThe US Senate approved a major government funding package on Friday, after the killings of two US citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis upended spending talks and gave the out-of-power party rare leverage over Donald Trump\u2019s mass deportation campaign.In a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-198745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}