By Jackson Richman, Joseph Lord and Nathan Worcester
Contributing Writers
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Friday evening was set to vote on government funding legislation after a deal was reached between the White House and Senate Democrats on Wednesday evening.
If the upper chamber passes the package, a partial government shutdown is expected to take effect over the weekend before the House returns from recess on Monday to take up any Senate-passed funding plan.
The vote series comes after Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., announced he would lift a hold on the legislation after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., agreed to a vote on legislation related to “sanctuary” jurisdictions for illegal immigrants.
Graham lifting the hold cleared the way for the Senate to take eight votes related to the underlying funding legislation.
Many of these votes are related to amendment votes — including amendments put forward by Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Rand Paul, R-Ky., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. — which were to be considered ahead of final passage.
Final passage requires 60 votes, requiring the consent of at least seven Democrats.
The vote comes less than a day after Democrats and the White House reached a shutdown deal that involved splitting off funding for the Department of Homeland Security from a broader spending package. After the fatal shooting of a second protester in Minnesota, Senate Democrats said they would not support funding for DHS without changes to certain immigration enforcement practices.
The deal includes a five-bill funding package for the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. It also includes a two-week stopgap bill to fund DHS, to allow further negotiations to play out.
Earlier on Thursday, the Senate blocked a funding package that included funding for DHS.
If the Senate passes the package, it will head to the House, which passed a different funding package last week. The lower chamber was out of session this week and is not scheduled to return until Monday.
President Donald Trump urged Congress to pass the bipartisan compromise.
“Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security (including the very important Coast Guard, which we are expanding and rebuilding like never before),” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “Hopefully, both Republicans and Democrats will give a very much needed bipartisan ‘YES’ vote.”
Senate Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced three demands on Wednesday regarding DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.
Schumer said the first demand would end “roving patrols” by ICE agents in U.S. cities, tighten warrant requirements, and require greater coordination between federal agents and state and local law enforcement.
The second demand calls for increased accountability for ICE agents.
“Federal agents should be held to the same use-of-force policies that apply to state and local law enforcement and be held accountable when they violate those rules,” Schumer said.
The third proposal would require ICE and other immigration agents to operate without masks, wear body cameras, and carry state-issued identification at all times.
Some Republicans open to reforms have nevertheless expressed skepticism about the Democrats’ demands, saying they’re more concerned about preventing a shutdown.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has criticized the administration’s approach to immigration operations, told reporters on Wednesday that he didn’t support shutting the government down over this issue.
Tillis cited the impacts a partial shutdown affecting DHS could have on agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Administration.
He argued that Democrats’ demands to split off the DHS bill from the broader package would “stand in the way of FEMA and other disaster response, potentially. So I don’t agree with that either.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, meanwhile, rejected Democrats’ calls for immigration agents to stop wearing masks during operations.
Cornyn described the demand as an “extension of anti-police advocacy, starting with ‘Defund the Police’ and then ‘Abolish ICE.’”
