(Washington) The United States is getting closer to a partial paralysis of the federal administration with the expected failure of a budget text in the Senate on Thursday, due to opposition from Democrats who are calling for stricter supervision of the immigration police.
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Funding for several departments expires at midnight Friday night. Without adoption by then of a budget for these federal services, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the federal state will enter a situation of partial paralysis, the famous “shutdown”.
And while a text adopted by the House of Representatives seemed to be heading towards adoption in the Senate to avoid this situation, the events in Minneapolis changed the situation.
Because indignation has reigned in the Democratic camp since the death last Saturday of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old American nurse shot and killed by federal agents on the sidelines of demonstrations against the presence of the immigration police (ICE) in this metropolis in the north of the United States.
Guardrails
Many senators called for safeguards to be put in place on how ICE operates, and said they refuse to pass any budget until the Trump administration reviews its policy on the matter.
“At the end of the day, it’s simple: Americans support law enforcement, they support border security, but they do not support ICE terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens,” Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in the chamber on Wednesday.
Due to the rules in force in the Senate, 60 votes out of 100 are necessary to adopt a budgetary text, and the Republicans, even if they have the majority, will therefore need the support of several elected representatives of the opposition to hope to adopt their budgetary text.
A procedural vote must take place Thursday morning in the Senate, but failure is widely expected.
The Democrats, for their part, explained that they were ready to adopt five of the six parts of the text, but wanted to separate the last one, which concerns the DHS, the supervisory department of ICE, in order to discuss the reforms that they wish to see put in place.
Paralysis expected
Since the House of Representatives had adopted the six parts in a single block, separating the DHS from the text would lead to a de facto paralysis at midnight on the night of Friday to Saturday, since the lower house would have to vote again on the version adopted by the Senate.
Particular to the United States, the “shutdown” generally results in the technical unemployment of hundreds of thousands of civil servants, while others with missions considered essential (air traffic controllers, police, military, etc.) continue to work. But everyone must wait until the budgetary paralysis ends to receive their salaries.
The longest shutdown in the country’s history dates back only to last November, when Republicans and Democrats fought for 43 days over the issue of health insurance subsidies.
It then only ended with the decision of a few Democratic senators to vote for a budget text concocted by the Republicans, in exchange for promises of concessions on these subsidies.
Their decision was strongly criticized at the time by many Democratic supporters, who want to see more vigorous opposition to Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress.
