Democrats will not provide votes to advance DHS funding bill in wake of Minneapolis shooting, Schumer says
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Saturday that Democrats will not put up the necessary votes to advance a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of immigration agents shooting and killing a man in Minneapolis on Saturday.
"What's happening in Minnesota is appalling —and unacceptable in any American city. Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans' refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE," Schumer said in a statement. "I will vote no. Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included."
The House on Thursday passed a funding package, along with a separate measure to fund DHS, sending the bills to the Senate for approval, along with two other funding measures that passed the House last week.
In the Senate, the DHS funding measure was expected to be packaged with the other legislation that funds key federal departments in hopes the Senate passes the measures together before the Jan. 30 deadline to fund the government.
To advance the legislation, Republicans will likely need eight Democrats to vote for the legislation, since Sen. Rand Paul has generally voted against appropriations bills. If the funding package does not pass the Senate, there will be another partial government shutdown.
Schumer's comments come after a Border Patrol agent shot and killed a 37-year-old man in south Minneapolis Saturday morning. Saturday's shooting comes after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Renee Good on Jan. 7 in South Minneapolis as well. Both victims are American citizens, and video of both incidents have spread quickly online.
Family identified the victim in Saturday's shooting as Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive care nurse living in Minneapolis. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a news conference that the man who was killed "approached" U.S. Border Patrol officers while they were conducting "targeted" immigration enforcement operations, with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun. Noem said officers attempted to disarm him, but he "reacted violently," and "fearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers around him, an agent fired defensive shots."
Nevada Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, who were two of the eight Democrats who voted against their party to end the 43-day government shutdown last year, both said Saturday that they will not support the measure funding DHS. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, another one of those eight Democrats, already said Friday he would not support funding DHS.
Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and had consistently voted to keep the government open during the last shutdown, said Sunday on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that he would not vote to fund DHS.
"I can't vote for a bill that includes ICE funding under these circumstances — what they're doing in my state, what we saw yesterday in Minneapolis," he said.
King suggested separating out DHS funding from the rest of the appropriations package to avoid a shutdown. "If those bills passed, 96% of the federal government is funded," King added.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Saturday evening she "will NOT support the DHS bill as it stands."
Several other Democratic senators on Saturday did not support funding DHS, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Mark Warner of Virginia, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Andy Kim of New Jersey and Alex Padilla of California.
Murphy and Padilla, along with a small group of Democratic senators, have spent the past two days calling colleagues to whip opposition to the DHS funding bill, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.
Senate Democrats are expected to hold a caucus call on the issue Sunday evening, a source told CBS News.
Although several House Democrats supported the bills to fund the government, prominent House Democrats on Saturday called on the upper chamber to reject the bill.
"DHS just shot a man in broad daylight two weeks after they shot a mother in the face without consequence," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York posted on social media Saturday. "They need our votes to continue. We cannot give it to them. Every Senator should vote NO."
And Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, in a debate Saturday in the race for the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, reasserted that she "absolutely voted against" funding DHS.
"There was no way I was going to continue to pump a historic amount of money into this rogue organization that is going out and is violating people's rights every single day on American cities," Crockett said.
A handful of Republicans in Congress also spoke out following the shooting.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, called the events in Minneapolis "incredibly disturbing," arguing that the "credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake" and calling for a joint federal and state investigation.
GOP Rep. Michael Baumgartner of Washington likewise said he's "disturbed" by what he's seen in Minnesota, while lauding the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee for seeking testimony from ICE leaders and other officials.
The deadly Minneapolis shootings have occurred amid the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in the city in recent weeks. Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Saturday that the state "has had it," and he called on the Trump administration to pull ICE agents from Minneapolis, characterizing their efforts an "absolute abomination."
The Trump administration has deployed 3,000 federal agents from ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection throughout Minnesota as part of "Operation Metro Surge." Tensions between the federal agents and residents are high, especially after the Jan. 7 shooting and an altercation after an ICE officer shot a Venezuelan migrant in the leg last week.
Vice President JD Vance said Thursday in Minneapolis that many of those officers are not even doing targeted immigration enforcement, but instead are stepping in to protect ICE officers from clashes with protesters. He blamed a "failure of cooperation" by local and state authorities for the rising tensions.
On Friday, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of the Twin Cities to protest Operation Metro Surge, and hundreds of businesses closed in solidarity.