The US Senate has failed to advance a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) amid dispute over Democratic demands to place new restrictions on immigration agents.
A procedural vote on Thursday fell short of the number required, leaving it stalled ahead of a midnight Saturday deadline.
Following the killings of two US citizens, Democrats have called for tighter oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including banning its agents from wearing masks and requiring them to use body cameras.
The lapse in funding is expected to have little impact on ICE operations. But it could hit other DHS agencies, including those in charge of disaster response and airport security.
ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies will largely continue to be funded because of legislation last year that gave billions to dollars to advance President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Senate Minority Speaker Chuck Schumer said Democratic proposals, like the end of masks for agents, were “common sense”.
“For weeks, we have been pushing common sense reforms, the very types of things that local and sheriffs throughout America routinely follow,” Schumer said after the vote. “Democrats will not support a blank cheque for chaos.”
Democrats also want the deal to include a ban on racial profiling, require judicial warrants before agents enter private property, and prohibit immigration enforcement at medical facilities, schools, childcare centres, churches, polling stations and courts.
The Trump administration recently announced it would begin providing body cameras for officers in Minneapolis before rolling it out to officers nationwide. But several sticking points remained in the negotiations ahead of the funding deadline.
Key among Republican demands is for a deal that would force local and state police to cooperate with federal immigration officials.
Shortly after the vote, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said other sub-agencies such as FEMA, which handles natural disaster response, and TSA, which screens passengers at airports, will be affected the most.
“Those officers that show up and check your bags, they screen individuals on if they are safe to get on aeroplanes or not, they won’t be paid after Friday,” Noem said at a news conference in California near the US-Mexico border.
She said funding to protect US infrastructure from cyber-attacks will also be impacted.
“The Democratic Party is choosing not to fund them and making us very vulnerable to those terrorists being successful here on our homeland.”
Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, said some of the proposals by Democrats are positive but said others were “non-starters and unnecessarily tie the hands of law enforcement”.
The Senate is on a week-long recess but senators could be called back if a deal is reached in the meantime. The bill has already been passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
By BBC News
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