Senate Democrats said they would block a funding bill that includes tens of billions for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after federal agents fatally shot another person in Minneapolis on Saturday, a move that looks likely to cause a partial government shutdown at the end of the week.
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Reacting to a wave of anger from his party over the killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would oppose the package that includes $64.4 billion in funding for the DHS, $10 billion of which is earmarked for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling—and unacceptable in any American city,” Schumer, who represents New York, said on Saturday evening. He added that “because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE.”
Read more: Why Democrats Fought the ICE Funding Bill—and Why It Passed Anyway
The bill was passed in the House of Representatives on Thursday with few changes after seven Democrats joined with nearly all Republicans to send the package to the Senate and keep the government open past Jan. 30.
Despite a growing national backlash over the actions of immigration agents in the wake of the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, the seven Democrats—many of them in swing districts—backed the bill, citing the potential damaging effects of a shutdown.
Before the weekend, Schumer and other Senate Democrats had signaled that they had wanted to avoid a shutdown and the bill looked likely to pass in the Senate. But Pretti’s killing at the hands of a Border Patrol agent, after being pepper-sprayed and shot several times on the ground, prompted a wave of anger in the party.
Republicans need seven Democratic votes to reach the 60 they need to pass the bill, but several Senate Democrats who previously voted with Republicans to avoid shutdowns, or had indicated they would support the legislation, said they would no longer vote for it.
“Enough is enough,” said Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Democrat from Nevada who voted against her party to end the government shutdown in November last year. “I have the responsibility to hold the Trump administration accountable when I see abuses of power.”
Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico used the same language in announcing his opposition to the bill.
“Enough is enough. I will not vote to fund the lawlessness of DHS, not by itself and not packaged with other funding bills. We need MAJOR reforms at DHS, and we need them now,” he wrote on X.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington had argued in favor of the legislation before Saturday, but shifted her position after the shooting.
“Federal agents cannot murder people in broad daylight and face zero consequences,” she wrote Saturday. “The DHS bill needs to be split off from the larger funding package before the Senate — Republicans must work with us to do that. I will continue fighting to rein in DHS and ICE.”
Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, another one of the eight Democrats who voted to end the shutdown in November, said she wouldn’t support the DHS measure.
“The Trump Administration and Kristi Noem are putting undertrained, combative federal agents on the streets with no accountability,” Cortez Masto said in a statement on social media. “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.”
Read More: Photos of Minneapolis Protests As City Erupts in Anger Over Killing By Federal Agent
Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, Peter Welch of Vermont, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and Brian Schatz of Hawaii all also vowed to vote no.
Independent Maine Sen. Angus King said on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday that he would not vote for an ICE package but that “we don’t have to have a shutdown.”
Schumer’s announcement came hours after authorities identified the person killed by federal authorities in Minneapolis as Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis, who wanted to “make a difference in this world,” according to his father. His killing marked the second by federal agents in just over two weeks, after Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother of three.
Senate Republicans are now scrambling to avoid a shutdown. Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins told the New York Times she was “exploring all options.”
“We have five other bills that are really vital, and I’m relatively confident they would pass,” she said.
The bill covers around $1.3 trillion in annual spending, and its failure would mean some parts of the government would have to shut down.
Although the move marks a shift in the Democratic Party’s willingness to block funding for ICE, the agency is sitting on tens of billions of dollars from President Donald Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which passed last year—$14 billion of which was to be allocated to deportation efforts.