Where government funding talks stand after the Minneapolis shooting

By Alison Main, Aileen Graef, Lauren Fox, CNN

(CNN) — The chance of a partial government shutdown by week’s end is growing, as the fate of funding for the Department of Homeland Security and other key government agencies hangs in the balance.

In the wake of another deadly shooting by a federal officer in Minneapolis, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that Democrats won’t provide the 60 votes needed to advance a six-bill appropriations package if it includes the current DHS funding measure.

He called it “woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement).” (ICE and Customs and Border Protection are part of DHS.)

Now, Senate Democrats and Republicans are weighing how to move forward, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Here’s what to know about the state of funding negotiations ahead of Friday’s deadline:

What’s at stake?

A shutdown would affect more than just DHS.

If the Senate fails to pass the legislation by midnight on Friday, funding will lapse for several parts of the federal government, including the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development – raising the prospects that even a partial government shutdown could have wide-ranging impacts.

That means once again lawmakers could be headed for an unpredictable and significant shutdown that could affect thousands of government workers across agencies from the Pentagon to air traffic controllers to TSA. Adding to the political complexities for Democrats is the fact that a shutdown over DHS funding may also do little to impact the very agency they seek to reform.

What Democrats are saying

Many Senate Democrats have fallen in line behind Schumer, who is demanding Senate Majority Leader John Thune separate the Department of Homeland Security funding bill from the other five appropriations bills in the package.

“If Leader Thune puts those five bills on the floor this week, we can pass them right away. If not, Republicans will again be responsible for another government shutdown,” Schumer said Monday.

And in perhaps the clearest sign yet that the path to fully fund the government is in trouble, many lawmakers who crossed party lines last fall to reopen the government are now saying they won’t support this key appropriations bill without major changes.

“I hate shutdowns,” Sen. Angus King, the independent senator who caucuses with Democrats, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, but as his own home state of Maine experiences a surge of federal immigration officers, King said he “can’t vote for a bill that includes ICE funding under these circumstances.”

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat, echoed King, saying the DHS funding bill in its current form offered “no accountability.”

All 100 senators would have to agree to separate the DHS funding bill, which includes funding for ICE, from the rest of the package. If even one senator objects, then that portion will remain in the package, setting the stage for a partial government shutdown.

Currently, Democrats are trying to coalesce around a single set of demands, but a source familiar with those talks said conversations about what kinds of reforms Democrats will seek as it pertains to DHS are ongoing. Democratic leaders are still soliciting suggestions and ideas from their members.

Where Republicans stand

Republicans say they are exploring all options as it relates to Democratic demands to strip the DHS bill out of the House-passed six-bill package to fund the government. A top goal, they say, is to prevent a shutdown of what amounts to 75% of the government’s spending.

But so far, Thune and other GOP leaders have expressed no public interest in breaking out DHS funding into a separate vote.

While the White House and GOP senators have begun initial outreach to Democrats to find a way out of shuttering the major federal agencies by week’s end, according to senior aides, there’s no indication a shutdown crisis will be averted by Friday’s deadline.

“Republicans and the White House have reached out but have not yet raised any realistic solutions,” one Senate Democratic leadership aide said.

The White House said Monday that it does not support separating DHS funding from the broader package.

“At this point, the White House supports the bipartisan work that was done to advance the bipartisan appropriations package, and we want to see that passed,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a press briefing.

Republicans need Democratic votes

Republicans, who hold a 53-seat majority, will need the support of a handful of Democrats to advance any funding bill.

If GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky votes no, as he usually does on appropriations bills, at least eight Democrats will need to cross the aisle to keep all parts of the government open.

For now, GOP leaders can count out King and Cortez Masto, two of the three members of the Democratic caucus who consistently voted with most Republicans against a shutdown late last year.

Sen. John Fetterman, the third member of that group, said on Monday that he “will never vote to shut our government down,” but said that he does support stripping the DHS bill out of the broader funding package.

Sens. Tim Kaine, Jacky Rosen and Jeanne Shaheen have said they’ll oppose any DHS funding measure without additional safeguards against aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.

And Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic whip who backed reopening the government in November, said he “will not vote to fund the illegal DHS and ICE operations that terrorize Chicago, Minneapolis, and many other communities.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Maggie Hassan hasn’t explicitly said she’ll block the bill, but has voiced opposition to ICE.

Will a shutdown really rein in ICE?

Democrats may not have much power to actually restrict ICE activities in the event of a shutdown. Multiple congressional aides contend that even in a shutdown scenario ICE would still continue to operate its main functions.

The passage of the president’s signature policy bill last summer injected tens of billions of dollars into the agency, giving DHS Secretary Krisit Noem wide-ranging power to move money around to carry out the agency’s operations.

Top Democratic Sen. Patty Murray appeared to acknowledge how little a shutdown may impact the agency’s activities when she first announced the bipartisan deal over DHS funding earlier this month, writing: “The suggestion that a shutdown in this moment might curb the lawlessness of this administration is not rooted in reality: under a CR and in a shutdown, this administration can do everything they are already doing—but without any of the critical guardrails and constraints imposed by a full-year funding bill.”

The Republican-backed “Big, Beautiful Bill” provided ICE alone with $75 billion last summer when it was facing a funding crunch due to increased operations. The injection of cash was seven times its typical budget. DHS, meanwhile, received $165 billion for immigration enforcement activity in the president’s bill.

Guidance from DHS during the fall funding fight showed that more than 93% of ICE and CBP workers would be retained during a lapse, according to the agency’s shutdown plan.

Also, during the most recent shutdown, Noem posted on X that 70,000 law enforcement personnel in DHS, including in CBP, ICE, the US Secret Service and other divisions, would receive their paychecks.

A tight timeline

Congress faces an incredibly narrow window to fund the remainder of the government by late Friday.

A major snowstorm forced the Senate to delay its first vote of the week to Tuesday evening.

The House is out on its planned recess and isn’t due to return to Washington until early next month, after having passed the package of funding bills last week.

If the Senate does make any changes to the House package, House Speaker Mike Johnson would need to call his members back for a vote on the new versions before they could be sent to the president.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Ted Barrett, Manu Raju, Morgan Rimmer and Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.