On Nov. 12, 2025, President Donald Trump signed a short-term funding bill ending the longest federal government shutdown in history. Among other things, the bill funded the government through Jan. 30, 2026—this Friday. In the weeks that followed, appropriators in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives made a plan to pass groups of spending bills funding the government through the end of the fiscal year. Last week, the House passed the final group of bills and sent the package to the Senate for what was supposed to be bipartisan approval of the package well before the Friday deadline.
That scenario is no more.
Senate Democrats, united over recent activity by federal immigration agents in Minnesota, are threatening to block passage of the final funding package unless the bill funding the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which includes funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is pulled and renegotiated. Failure to pass all six bills before Friday would result in a partial government shutdown.
Senate Republicans have reached out to Democrats to discuss possible solutions that would not include renegotiating DHS funding, but Democrats have thus far stayed united in their position that they want real ICE reforms. Republican leadership believes that specific policy changes will be seriously considered by the president, but demands to abolish ICE will not. So far, mere promises of changes by the administration have not been enough for Senate Democrats; they want actual legislative fixes.
Democrats also know there is clearly risk in taking this position. Not passing a DHS funding bill by Friday would affect more than just DHS and ICE—funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency is also included in the DHS bill. Shutting down FEMA in the middle of an onslaught of severe winter weather across the country is politically problematic. If the six-bill package stalls, then the Pentagon, along with the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of Transportation, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, will be affected as well.
Another potential problem as Friday draws closer is that the House is in recess until Feb. 3. If Senate Democrats prevail and the DHS funding bill is pulled to be renegotiated, the House will need to be called back into session to pass the amended funding package. The concern is that House Republicans won’t vote for the revised package unless there is a short-term stopgap funding bill that covers DHS, which Democrats clearly won’t support.
It looks like the White House will have to get involved—to help negotiate concessions to Democrats to support a funding package, and also to keep House Republicans in line to vote for whatever the new package looks like. If that doesn’t happen, it may mean a second federal government shutdown in four months—something that was unthinkable just two weeks ago.