The Senate voted on Friday afternoon to avert a government shutdown while also passing a stopgap measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security as Democrats and Republicans negotiate guardrails for immigration enforcement agencies.
The Senate voted 71-29 to pass five of the major funding bills in a package known as a minibus. Those bills will fund the Departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Defense, Labor and Transportation.
In addition, the legislation includes a two-week stopgap to fund the Department of Homeland Security as the Senate begins negotiations to enact guardrails for the department.
This comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot and killed Renee Good earlier this month and Customs and Border Protection shot and killed Alex Pretti.
“The agency is being run by people who have no idea what they’re doing and don’t seem to give a s**t about the constitutional rights of the American people,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) told The Independent about ICE.
But because the legislation changed since it passed the House of Representatives last week, it will have to go back to the House next week for a final vote before it goes to President Donald Trump’s desk. The president has indicated he would sign the legislation.
“I’m very optimistic, I think there’s a lot of consensus that we need to make some reforms,” Sen Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, told The Independent.
Democrats hope to enact a series of reforms to both agencies, such as ending roving patrols in cities, removing masks from ICE officers, forcing them to wear body cameras and obtaining a judicial warrant before going into people’s homes.
The vote is a sign that Republicans understand their increased unpopularity when it comes to immigration and deportations. During the 2024 election, Trump pledged mass deportations of immigrations who came to the United States illegally.
But a poll from Fox News released this week showed that 55 percent of Americans disapprove of how Trump has handled immigration. At the same time, the poll showed that 52 percent of Americans think Republicans would do a better job handling immigration.
Multiple Republicans have called for an investigation into Alex Pretti and two Republican senators called for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to step aside, which earned the ire of Trump.
Because government money runs out at midnight, the government will go into a shutdown this weekend. The House of Representatives is set to have a vote on the legislation early next week.
But the legislation does not guarantee that ICE will be reined in.
The Homeland Security spending bill would have given ICE $10 billion, but ICE already received $75 billion in mandatory spending outside of appropriations last year, thanks to the One Big, Beautiful Bill Republicans passed along party lines.
