USA, towards new shutdown after violence by Ice agents
Different US senators they stated that they will vote against the next public spending bills after federal Ice agents killed a second American citizen in Minneapolis, Alex Prettisignificantly increasing the chances of one government shutdown next week.
Funding for much of the federal government, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Pentagon, expires on January 31. The House of Representatives, with a Republican majority, approved the funding until September, but it is still Senate approval is required. US President Donald Trump‘s Republican Party also controls the 100-member Senate but does not have enough members to pass spending bills without Democratic support.
Republicans hoped to secure some Democratic votes on the spending package, even though it included full funding of DHS, the agency implementing Trump’s controversial immigration agenda.
“I will not support the current Homeland Security funding bill”, Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, one of the possible undecided electors, declared yesterday in a statement after the latest murder in Minneapolis. The Nevada senator said the Trump administration and DHS chief Kristi Noem are “putting poorly trained and aggressive federal agents on the streets with no accountability.”
The killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse from Minneapolis, comes just three weeks after another Minnesota resident, Renee Good, a 37-year-old teacher, was shot and killed by a federal agent.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said that “this brutal repression must end” in a post on X in response to Pretti’s death. “I can’t and I will not vote to fund DHS as this administration continues these violent federal occupations of our cities,” he added.
The longest government shutdown in U.S. history, during which hundreds of thousands of federal employees were placed on furlough except those deemed essential who were asked to work without pay, ended last November after 43 days.
Senate rules require 60 votes to approve spending lawsand the growing number of Democratic lawmakers withdrawing their support for the spending bill has made another shutdown increasingly likely just two months after the last one.
