Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) called on Senate Republicans on Sunday to move a government funding package without funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in order to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of the week.
Schumer urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House GOP leaders to drop the Homeland Security appropriations bill, which would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), from the six-bill funding package that is due to come to the Senate floor this week.
“Senate Democrats will not allow the current DHS funding bill to move forward,” Schumer said in a statement Sunday afternoon.
He called on Republican colleagues to “join Democrats in overhauling ICE and CBP to protect the public,” referring to Customs and Border Protection.
“People should be safe from abuse by their own government,” he said. “Senate Republicans must work with Democrats to advance the other five funding bills while we work to rewrite the DHS bill.”
“This is best course of action, and the American people are on our side,” he said.
Schumer issued his remarks after Democratic senators across the political spectrum vowed to block the Homeland Security appropriations, which were to be combined with bills funding the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, State, Transportation and other federal agencies, under a rule passed last week in the House.
Sen. Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, announced Sunday he would oppose the DHS funding bill.
“I hate shutdowns, I’m one of the people who helped negotiate the solution to the end of the last shutdownm but I can’t vote for a bill that includes ICE funding under these circumstances,” King told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
He spoke out against the Trump administration’s tactics in his home state after ICE launched an operation in Portland, Maine, to arrest and deport migrants without legal status, sparking pushback from local leaders.
“The people that are being terrorized in Maine, are being terrorized by ICE. … Here’s what’s happening in Portland. People are afraid to send their kids to school, people are afraid to go to work, businesses are suffering because their workers can’t come in,” King said.
King’s opposition to Homeland Security funding is a notable development as he was one of the few members of the Democratic caucus who voted repeatedly for a House-passed stopgap government funding measure to avoid a shutdown in the fall.
The Maine senator called on Thune to break up the five House-passed appropriations bills and pass them individually on the Senate floor.
“Leader Thune could separate … the five other appropriations bills, put them on the floor. They would pass, I think, overwhelmingly. Then let’s take up DHS … take up DHS by itself. Let’s have an honest negotiation, put some guardrails on what’s going on, some accountability.”
“We don’t have to have a shutdown,” he said.
