U.S. government funding has been stalled due to Democratic anger over the killing of two people by federal agents during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Published January 31, 2026
U.S. senators approved a last-minute deal to avert the worst effects of an impending government shutdown after Democratic anger over the killings of two people by immigration officials derailed government funding talks.
After several hours of delays, the U.S. Senate passed the compromise spending package on Friday with a bipartisan vote of 71-29.
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But with the House of Representatives in recess until Monday, the shutdown is still scheduled to begin Saturday, meaning the Senate cannot ratify the deal by Friday’s midnight deadline, making weekend funding shortfalls inevitable.
Senate leaders say the bill approved Friday makes it much more likely that the shutdown will end quickly, possibly within days.
“Technically speaking, there will be a partial government shutdown at midnight Saturday,” Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan said in a report from Washington, D.C.
“The earliest the House can consider the changes approved by the U.S. Senate late Friday will be Monday, after being in recess all week. They should be back in Washington by the end of this week,” Jordan said.
“The assumption right now of the Trump administration, which was supporting this compromise that passed in the Senate on Friday, is that all of this can be resolved very quickly early next week,” she said.
But there are also concerns that the closure could be prolonged, given the political polarization surrounding Donald Trump’s administration’s harsh immigration raids and the killing of American citizens in those operations.
“Therefore, there is hope that this issue may be resolved early next week. But there is a possibility that this may not be the case,” Jordan added.
The funding crunch comes amid Democratic anger over aggressive immigration enforcement after federal agents shot and killed two Americans, Alex Preti and Renee Goode, in separate incidents in the north city of Minneapolis this month during a campaign of violence against illegal immigrants.
The Minneapolis killings became a flashpoint, fueling opposition to approving new funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) without changing how the agency operates.
Under a deal struck between the White House and Senate Democratic leadership, lawmakers approved five outstanding funding bills to fund most of the federal government through the end of the fiscal year in September.
The Senate-approved deal separates funding for DHS, which oversees immigration services, from the government’s broader funding package, allowing lawmakers to approve spending for agencies such as the Defense Department and the Department of Labor while considering new restrictions on how federal immigration agencies operate.
Funding for DHS was divided and extended for just two weeks as a stopgap measure intended to give lawmakers time to negotiate changes to the department’s operations.
Senate Democrats had threatened to withhold funding entirely to force President Trump to rein in DHS and immigration crackdowns.
Democrats want to abolish patrols by immigration agents, require them to wear body cameras and ban them from wearing face masks.
They also want to require immigration officials to obtain search warrants from judges rather than officials.
Republicans have said they are open to some of these ideas.
Much of the US media interpreted the White House’s flexibility as a recognition that immigration crackdowns needed to be eased in the wake of the Minneapolis murders.
