Late last night, the Senate reached a tentative bipartisan deal to fund most of the federal government ahead of tonight’s expiration of current funding. The deal involves separating the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill from a package containing the other five remaining appropriations bills and passing a two-week continuing resolution (CR) to keep DHS funded at current levels through February 13 to give Congress time to negotiate over changes to immigration enforcement that Democrats are demanding. Senate leaders are attempting to quickly clear the remaining five bills—covering $1.2 trillion in funding for Labor-HHS, Defense, Transportation-HUD, Financial Services-General Government, and State and Foreign Operations—which together would provide full year fiscal 2026 funding for roughly 96% of federal government operations.
But last night, floor action was stalled after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) objected to a unanimous consent request to advance the deal quickly because he opposes a provision in the package eliminating a compensation program for himself and seven other Senators whose phone records were obtained without their knowledge during the Justice Department’s probe of the 2020 elections. Given this delay and the impending midnight deadline, a short, partial government shutdown is currently anticipated over the weekend and into Monday when the House returns. The affected federal agencies are going through the formal process of shutting down. Ironically, expiration of DHS funding will not materially impact ICE and Border Patrol operations because these agencies received an enormous infusion of cash in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law last year, but other DHS components would be affected. There remains the possibility of a longer DHS shutdown if division across the razor-thin GOP House majority over both the two-week stopgap DHS bill and new limits on immigration enforcement delay House action next week.
Once the funding deal is enacted, expect an intense debate in Congress over potential new limits on ICE and the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement operations. Proposals under consideration include tighter warrant and identification standards, body camera requirements, limits on mask usage, and a universal federal law enforcement code of conduct governing use of force. Progressive Democrats want more fundamental changes to immigration enforcement operations, while conservative Republicans are pressing for measures to eliminate the ability of states and localities to be “sanctuary jurisdictions.”