By Thérèse Boudreaux | The Center Square
(Worthy News) – The U.S. Senate sent a $1.2 trillion government funding package back to the House for approval Friday night, ensuring a partial government shutdown over the weekend.
The package includes five of the six remaining appropriations bills – funding State-Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, Defense, Labor-HHS-Education, and Transportation-HUD – and a short-term Continuing Resolution in place of the Homeland Security bill.
The stopgap will freeze DHS funding at current levels for the next two weeks, during which time lawmakers will restructure the Homeland Security bill to add some Democrats’ policy demands.
“The agreement we reached today did precisely what Democrats wanted,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters after the vote.
The funding compromise resulted from negotiations among party leaders, as well as President Donald Trump directly negotiating with Schumer.
In exchange for securing enough Democratic votes to advance the majority of the remaining appropriations bills, Republicans agreed to include new restrictions on immigration enforcement agents in the Homeland Security bill.
Those could include barring agents from wearing masks, requiring body-worn cameras, and implementing stricter warrant requirements, among other changes.
Many Republicans in both the House and Senate disapproved of the deal and vowed to vote against legislation that overhauls Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Chamber leaders had originally considered passing the five appropriations bills separately from the CR and sending them to Trump’s desk immediately, but ended up bundling them together for a greater chance of the funding stopgap passing the House.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., voted for the package but said he was “disturbed that Republicans are negotiating with Democrats on so-called ‘reforms’ to ICE.”
“In two weeks, I will vote against any ‘reforms’ that keep ICE agents from doing their jobs and deporting criminals,” he added.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
The confrontation between the United States and Iran escalated sharply this weekend after President Donald Trump issued a stark ultimatum threatening to “obliterate” Iran’s power infrastructure if Tehran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours — one of the world’s most critical chokepoints.
Iran escalated its conflict with the United States by launching two long-range missiles at the U.S.-U.K. base on Diego Garcia—its first confirmed use of intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The strike, targeting a base about 2,500 miles away, revealed capabilities far beyond what many analysts had expected.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night was “a very difficult evening in the campaign for our future” after Iranian ballistic missiles struck the southern cities of Dimona and Arad, injuring at least 175 people and causing significant damage to civilian neighborhoods.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will help with security efforts at the nation’s airports beginning Monday as a partial government shutdown is causing lengthy delays for passengers, President Donald Trump wrote Sunday on social media.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday will hear arguments in a consequential case to determine if states can accept and count mail-in ballots after Election Day.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump used a major conservative gathering in Hungary to endorse Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ahead of a high-stakes April 12 election, as warnings over mass migration and what speakers described as the “Islamization of Europe” dominated the conference.
Human rights activists and senior officials have expressed concern about Russia’s interference in Hungary’s upcoming elections after revelations that a former interpreter of Russian President Vladimir Putin is part of an international observation mission overseeing the April 12 vote.