Republicans are showing cracks in their government shutdown strategy

With just two and a half days left to avert a partial government shutdown, Senate Democrats are presenting a largely unified front in demanding sweeping changes to a Department of Homeland Security funding bill. 

By contrast, Senate Republicans are showing signs of division.

It’s not that Republicans are embracing Democratic proposals. After Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., outlined his demands Wednesday — an end to “roving patrols” by immigration officers, accountability for agents who violate rules, and a “masks off, body cameras on” policy for immigration agents — Republicans were quick to criticize his offer.

But GOP senators are split on Schumer’s fallback proposal: To strip the DHS funding bill from the larger package of government spending bills and pass the measures that have bipartisan support.

Schumer said Wednesday that breaking up the package would be “simple to do.”

“I am quite confident it would pass overwhelmingly,” he told reporters.

The current spending package under consideration covers roughly 80% of the federal government’s annual discretionary budget. Removing the DHS bill and passing the rest would effectively fund about 96% of agency spending for the year, after Congress already funded six of the 12 appropriations bills over the last few months.

It’s an idea that at least some Republicans are getting behind. 

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said lawmakers should move ahead with the portions of government funding that Republicans and Democrats agree on and then buy more time to work out an agreement on DHS with a continuing resolution. 

“At this juncture, the smart play is to carve out the Homeland Security bill, and we can fight over that, but in the meantime, try to do a CR and pass the other bills,” Kennedy told reporters Thursday.

The question is how many other Republican senators would go along with the plan. Schumer said he thinks there are currently “six or seven” Republican senators who support the plan.

To clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold, however, it would take 13 Republicans to sign on to Schumer’s proposal. And then House members would have to return from a recess in order to pass a revised bill and send the proposal to the president’s desk. Otherwise, most of the federal government will shutter come Saturday morning.

Kennedy said plenty of Republican lawmakers privately support the strategy of splitting DHS off from the larger package, but don’t want to say it publicly.

“Behind the scenes, most other Republicans agree with me,” Kennedy said.

At least two others have openly said so. When asked if she would be amenable to breaking up the funding package, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, gave a terse “yeah.”

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., also said he would support splitting up the six-bill package into two.

The five non-controversial bills — which would fund the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, the Treasury, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, Education, and others — could pass easily, Rounds said.

“We want to do as much as we can,” he told reporters. “And it is a possibility of doing the five bills and then bringing back in the other one on a short-term continuing resolution as the one item that continues to be talked about.”

Kennedy, Murkowski and Rounds are all members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

As lawmakers fight over the best way to avoid as much of a government shutdown as possible, Democrats are adamant they won’t go along with DHS funding without new restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other immigration agencies.

“This is necessary,” Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., told MS NOW. “What is more important for us as senators than the safety of the American people?”

“The American people are scared,” he said, adding that he’s hearing from people that are carrying around their passports now as a precaution. 

Government funding — including the DHS bill — had looked like it was on a glide path last week. And then immigration officers fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minnesota on Saturday. That dramatic moment sparked outrage nationwide and crystallized for Democrats that they needed immigration enforcement reforms.

But actually getting Republicans onboard with their proposed changes could be much harder.

Already, some Republicans are saying those Democratic demands are a no-go. For one, Republicans don’t particularly care for the calls for agents to remove their masks.

“I guess they want to empower the protesters to be able to dox agents even more,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told MS NOW. 

He said “the only thing” Congress would accomplish by mandating that officers not wear masks is to tell protesters “keep going, take pictures of agents, troll their families.”

“I get where they’re trying to come from,” Lankford said, “but that’s not fair to agents.”

Of course, the idea of reopening negotiations on Homeland Security funds could boomerang back against Democrats. Hard-line conservative lawmakers are already promising to push the bill in a more conservative direction if talks begin again.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wrote on X that, in response to the Democratic proposals, he would have his own list of demands, starting with a ban on “sanctuary cities” that don’t aid federal immigration enforcement.

For now, many Senate Republicans are insisting they’ll move ahead with a procedural vote Thursday on all six bills, daring Democrats to block it.

“It’s politics, and it’s the Senate, and anything can change in 24 hours,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told reporters Wednesday. “But our plan is to vote on six bills.”

Contrary to the early signs that some Republicans are willing to strip the DHS bill from the funding package, Mullin said the GOP was negotiating from a position of strength. 

Republicans approved $75 billion for ICE in the massive tax-and-spending package enacted last summer — money that would continue to be available during a shutdown. So if DHS loses funding, agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Transportation Security Administration would be affected, but ICE would be insulated.

“DHS has a tremendous slush fund that was already put in place to secure the border and make sure that ICE agents and the border agents are able to do their job,” Mullin told reporters.

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, echoed that sentiment, arguing that the DHS measure “has nothing to do with FEMA,” and warning that a shutdown could be disastrous for other parts of the department.

“This is about FEMA,” Moreno said. “We’re in the middle, still, a tough winter. It is the Coast Guard, which is really important to my state and others. Secret Service, which is about to do huge events around the country. TSA, I mean, we don’t want to make our skies more dangerous. So there’s no scenario in which we do not vote all this to go forward.”

The threat of undermining FEMA, while keeping ICE running, has weighed on some more centrist Republicans. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., criticized the Democratic plan, noting that there’s “already sufficient money” to keep ICE running. But he said it would be a bad idea to shut down FEMA after Winter Storm Fern.

Still, Kennedy said there’s interest among Republicans in moving most of the bills, even if leaders are publicly taking an all-or-nothing approach.

“They’re not gonna say it because the leader is trying to be firm,” Kennedy said. “That’s his job, is to be firm. But the leader is a very smart man.”

Kevin Frey and Syedah Asghar contributed to this report.