January 29, 2026
T minus one day till the US government partially shutdown. The good news — Senate Democrats and Republicans are talking about making changes to ICE. The bad news is that deal isn’t coming fast enough.
So here’s what you need to know. About ICE funding and whether the US government will partially shut down at the end of the day tomorrow. The Senate majority leader tried a procedural vote earlier this morning to pass all six funding bills that would keep the government open with no changes to homeland security and ICE. It failed miserably. No surprise. So now the White House and Republicans have to make some kind of deal with democrats.
And according to the Senate minority leader that deal has been reached. But there are a lot of moving parts which I’m about to explain to you – so stick with me.
First – the plan is the senate –perhaps as soon as tonight — is going to try and get all one hundred Senators to agree to move this plan quickly. But just one senator can derail this process. – senators are squirrely so you never know if one will raise his or her plan and object. But let’s assume leadership can get everyone on board with this plan – the next step is to — separate the homeland security funding bill from the five other funding bills that passed in the house last week. Then the senate would vote on all those five bills – which includes funding for departments of defense, and treasury and heath and human services and labor – to name a few. Those funding will pass.
But that one funding bill hanging out there is for homeland security which includes of course ice. So – the deal is the Senate Democrats will agree with Republicans to a continuing resolution that just keeps homeland security operating at status quo funding levels and no structural changes to ICE for just two weeks while Republicans and Democrats in the Senate continue to work on the demands Democrats outlined that represent big changes to ice and the way homeland security conducts immigration enforcement in the United States. I told you all about those demands last night. It includes things like no masks, more body cameras…and coordination with local authorities…including when it comes to investigations.
If the senate can get 60 votes on those five bills and on this two-week continuing resolution for homeland security – then the house is going to have to pass it too. But the house is on recess—they’re not scheduled to come back into session until Monday. So there is a high likelihood that there will be a short term partial government shutdown through the weekend, until the house can pass these bills too. And that’s a big if. I’ll fill you in on that piece when or if we get there. But for you – if there is a partial government shutdown over the wakened — it’s not going to have a major impact on your life because the u-s government is usually closed on the weekend anyway. But if the house can’t get it together to pass this deal from the senate by next week and this partial shutdown lasts longer than a few days – then you will start to see issues.
There are a lot of moving parts – I’ll keep you posted.
