Another government shutdown has started, but a Senate breakthrough over DHS funding means it may be brief Mike BebernesSat, January 31, 2026 at 5:15 AM UTC 2 The Senate on Friday night passed a bipartisan government funding agreement that came too late to prevent a shutdown, but set the stage for the government to reopen after only a few days. The clock had been ticking for Congress to avoid another lengthy government shutdown, as lawmakers worked to finalize a plan to break an impasse over Department of Homeland Security funding in the wake of last weekend's fatal shooting of a U.S.
Another government shutdown has started, but a Senate breakthrough over DHS funding means it may be brief
Mike BebernesSat, January 31, 2026 at 5:15 AM UTC
2
The Senate on Friday night passed a bipartisan government funding agreement that came too late to prevent a shutdown, but set the stage for the government to reopen after only a few days.
The clock had been ticking for Congress to avoid another lengthy government shutdown, as lawmakers worked to finalize a plan to break an impasse over Department of Homeland Security funding in the wake of last weekend's fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis by federal immigration officials. That agreement came together, but the government still officially ran out of money at midnight on Friday.
Friday's vote was the latest twist in a back-and-forth saga over the past two weeks that at times raised serious concerns that Congress could be heading for another prolonged stalemate over government funding.
As recently as last week, Congress appeared to be on track to avoid a shutdown entirely. But after Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents on Saturday, Democrats began insisting that they would block any bill that provides more funding to the DHS, the agency that oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
"ICE is out of control. Killing people, separating families, and terrorizing our communities. I'm a NO on the DHS funding bill," Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado wrote on social media.
"I hate shutdowns … but I can't vote for a bill that includes ICE funding under these circumstances," Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, said on Sunday.
On Thursday, President Trump announced that he had struck a deal with Senate Democrats to avoid a prolonged shutdown and allow more time for the two parties to negotiate over Democrats' demands to rein in the administration's aggressive immigration crackdown.
The Senate passed the compromise about six hours before Friday's midnight deadline, but the government will still be shut down — for a few days at least — until the bill is approved by the House.
Democratic criticism of Trump's immigration policies is nothing new. But Pretti's death, less than three weeks after Renée Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, proved to be a tipping point for moderate Senate Democrats, who said they would shut the government down if nothing is done to curb the actions of federal immigration authorities.
On Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, revealed a set of demands to overhaul ICE. They include:
Tightening rules around the use of warrants and requiring ICE to coordinate with state and local law enforcement
Introducing a uniform code of conduct for all federal agents
Barring ICE agents from wearing face coverings, requiring that they wear body cameras and mandating that they carry visible identification
"We want masks off, body cameras on," Schumer said. "No more anonymous agents, no more secret operatives."
"These are commonsense reforms, ones that Americans know and expect from law enforcement," he added. "If Republicans refuse to support them, they are choosing chaos over order."
Republicans haven't agreed to those reforms. Instead, they helped pass a deal that allows the rest of the government to reopen soon and pushes the funding deadline for DHS back by two weeks to give the two sides time to negotiate.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Capitol Hill. (Anadolu via Getty Images)
The government ran out of money on Oct. 1 of last year and remained shut for 43 days, a full week longer than any previous shutdown in U.S. history. The political dynamics today were roughly the same as they were then: Republicans needed the votes of at least seven Democrats to overcome the filibuster and pass a spending bill, but Democrats said they wouldn't let that happen unless the GOP made some concessions on their core issue. Last time, it was health care. This time, it's the DHS.
That's where the similarities end, though. This time, the shutdown is expected to be very brief and will affect only part of the government. Even if it does last longer than anticipated, Americans will be spared some of the difficulties they endured the last time — most notably disruptions in food assistance.
How we got here
When Congress voted to end the last shutdown in November, most of the government received funding that runs through Jan. 30. That gave lawmakers less than three months to pass another spending bill.
Rather than trying to pass a single massive bill for the entire government before Friday, congressional leaders opted to split the legislation into three pieces and try to pass them individually. That approach was going smoothly … for a while. Two of the bills — including funding for the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Justice and Interior — were passed by both chambers of Congress and signed into law last week.
The third bill, which provides funding for the rest of the government, also seemed on track to pass. It was narrowly approved by the House last week and appeared to have just enough support to squeak through the Senate before Friday's deadline. That all changed after Pretti was killed. Key Democratic senators, including several who joined Republicans to end the last shutdown, began saying earlier in the week that they will not vote to fund DHS and would use the filibuster to sink the entire package unless DHS funding is removed.
Advertisement
Democrats were willing to pass everything else in the bill "right away" if the DHS portion was removed. Under that proposal, critical parts of the government — like the Departments of Defense, Transportation and Labor — would remain open and only DHS would have shut down
Until Thursday, Republicans seemed committed to keeping the bill intact. Then Trump announced that he had agreed to a middle ground that technically left the bill whole, but gave DHS a much shorter funding runway than all other agencies.
Given the timing of the deal, a short shutdown was inevitable. Because there were substantial changes made to its provisions, the House needs to approve the funding package again before it can be signed into law. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said Thursday that the earliest vote on any funding bill in the lower chamber would be on Monday.
"We may inevitably be in a short shutdown situation," Johnson told USA Today. "But the House is going to do its job."
How would this shutdown be different?
The historically long shutdown, which began on Oct. 1, affected the entire federal government. The next one will be what's known as a partial shutdown, because large portions of the government would continue to operate uninterrupted.
Thanks to the bills that have already passed, some of the problems that most directly impact everyday Americans will be avoided this time around. Food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, for example, will continue and national parks will remain open and fully staffed.
A partial shutdown of only a few days likely won't have much of an impact on the American people. But there would be some significant disruptions if the bill stalls in the House, leading to a longer shutdown.
Air traffic controllers and the Transportation Security Administration would once again be asked to work without pay, potentially leading to more travel delays. Thousands of federal workers would be furloughed, which could make it harder for Americans to get help with things like filing their taxes or accessing health care through Medicaid or Medicare. A wide range of other programs, like federal loans, grant approvals and permitting reviews would also be put on pause.
If the agreement holds and the government reopens early next week, DHS will still be on track to run out of money in just two weeks. ICE and CBP may be able to weather any funding lapse because of the $43 billion in additional money they received from Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill last summer. Other parts of DHS, most notably the TSA and federal disaster relief programs, don't have that kind of financial backstop.
DHS negotiations will continue
After resolving the immediate problem of keeping the government open, Democrats and Republicans will face a tight timeline to come to some sort of an agreement on reforms to DHS.
It remains to be seen whether Democrats as a whole will be satisfied with Schumer's list of proposed reforms, which are much more limited than what some of the rank-and-file members of his party have called for.
"What can we do to overhaul them? Let me start: new leadership; stopping these surges across the country — not just in my state; training them like they were supposed to be trained; … mandatory body cameras; stopping ramming into people's houses without a judicial warrant, and I could go on," Minnesota Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar told NBC News on Saturday.
"What we need to do is to establish — put some sort of guardrails, some sort of accountability around this lawless agency," Minnesota's other senator, Tina Smith, told NPR.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin has also called on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to testify before Congress about her stewardship of the department. Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said he will only vote to fund the DHS if Trump fires his top aide, Stephen Miller, who is widely viewed as the architect behind Trump's approach to immigration.
There's uncertainty on the Republican side, as well. GOP leadership is still firmly aligned behind Trump's immigration agenda, but cracks in his support within the party have started to show over the past few days.
Two GOP senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, have called for Noem to resign in response to Pretti's death. Several others have called for a full investigation and broader changes to the administration's approach.
"We're at a situation where this just isn't safe," GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said this week. "It's not safe for anybody. It's not safe for bystanders. It's not safe for law enforcement."
Whether these signs of discontent within the GOP will turn into actual support for some of the reforms Democrats want enacted remains to be seen.
Source: "AOL Breaking"
Source: Breaking
Published: January 31, 2026 at 08:54AM on Source: RED MAG
#ShowBiz#Sports#Celebrities#Lifestyle