Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has coalesced with Democrats behind a plan to strip the DHS funding bill from a broader spending package, but Republicans aren't biting. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
But the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti during an immigration enforcement operation over the weekend in Minneapolis destroyed that tepid support. That incident rapidly mobilized Senate Democrats to decry and reject the DHS bill.
Schumer said in a statement that Senate Democrats would not allow the current version of the DHS bill to advance and argued that Senate Republicans "have seen the same horrific footage that all Americans have watched of the blatant abuses of Americans by ICE in Minnesota."
"The appalling murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis must lead Republicans to join Democrats in overhauling ICE and [Customs and Border Protection] to protect the public," Schumer said. "People should be safe from abuse by their own government."
KEY SENATOR WON'T FUND DHS AS ICE, FEDERAL AGENTS ENTER HIS STATE
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune speak at a press conference on the Republican budget bill at the U.S. Capitol on April 10, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
Democrats’ position creates several procedural headaches beyond their desire to, for now, shut off funding to DHS. Any modification to the package would require approval from the House, which is not in town until early next month.
And House Republican leadership has no desire to return to Washington, D.C., in the interim, leaving the onus on Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and his leadership team to carve out a solution to the growing funding problem.
While some Senate Republicans are demanding a thorough investigation of the shooting of Pretti, none have gone so far as to demand that DHS funding be withheld.
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GOP leaders aren’t willing to cut the bill out of the package just to give Democrats what they want, especially after the current Homeland Security bill was negotiated on a bipartisan basis.
A Senate Republican aide told Fox News Digital that Republicans were "determined to not have another government shutdown."
"We will move forward as planned and hope Democrats can find a path forward to join us," they said.
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-democrats-threaten-shutdown-blocking-dhs-funding-after-minnesota-ice-shooting