House Speaker Mike Johnson will attempt to push a federal funding package to passage and prevent a prolonged partial government shutdown this week as Congress debates over President Trump’s immigration enforcement operations.
The shutdown does not include the whole government and will most likely not last long. The House of Representatives hoped to pass funding legislation by Monday, but is now shooting for Tuesday, Feb. 3.
Congress has already passed half of 2026’s funding bills to ensure that several federal agencies and programs continue to operate through September.
The government funding process had been going smoothly, but the shooting deaths this month of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents changed the dynamic.
Democrats were incensed after Pretti’s killing and demanded that one of the remaining six bills for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its associate agencies be stripped from the package. They said the bill must include changes to immigration enforcement and include a code of conduct for federal agents and a requirement that officers show identification.
Trump’s administration quickly struck a deal with Democrats to temporarily fund the DHS at its current levels for two weeks while the negotiations play out.
The Justice Department (DOJ) opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Pretti before the shutdown started on Saturday.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche did not explain why the DOJ decided to open an investigation into Pretti’s killing, but denied one for the death of Good, who was similarly shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
Blanche only said that the Civil Rights Division does not investigate every law enforcement shooting and that there have to be circumstances and facts that “warrant an investigation.”
It is not clear whether the FBI will share information with Minnesota state investigators, who have so far been kept out of the federal investigation.
A similar instance in Minnesota is the recent detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father on Jan. 20. The pair were on their way home from the child’s preschool.
The case sparked immediate national outcry after an image of Liam being taken into custody by immigration authorities went viral online.
Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett visited Liam and his father at the ICE detention center and announced the child had gotten sick and was “unresponsive” during her visit. US District Judge Fred Biery ordered the release of Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, after two weeks in custody.
“Observing human behavior confirms that for some of us, the lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds,” Biery wrote in his order. “And the rule of law be damned.”
The pair were allowed to fly back home, just as the detention center was hit by a measles outbreak.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said he would direct city police to document and investigate alleged wrongdoing by federal immigration agents amidst the government shutdown. Johnson signed an executive order over the weekend that will begin the process of prosecuting ICE agents.
“Nobody is above the law,” Johnson said in a statement quoted by AP News. “There is no such thing as ‘absolute immunity’ in America.”
Last weekend’s shutdown is not the first “weekend shutdown” to happen due to disagreements over immigration. In January 2018, notably in Trump’s first administration, a dispute over immigration protections resulted in a temporary shutdown. Few federal workers worked without pay and many did not notice the shutdown at all when federal offices reopened the following Monday.
As Senate members returned to the capital, Trump took to social media to urge lawmakers to not oppose the package presented.
“We need to get the government open, and I hope all Republicans and Democrats will join me in supporting this Bill, and send it to my desk WITHOUT DELAY,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
