The US is poised to avoid a major shutdown after senators agreed on Friday to separate out a controversial bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from a package that also includes funding for the State Department and the Pentagon.
The House, which is out of session this week, will still need to approve the package before it can be signed into law, meaning that there will be at least a brief funding lapse after current funding expires on Friday. But the chamber is expected to move on the legislation quickly early next week, minimising the effects of the lapse.
A more prolonged shutdown of several major federal agencies had seemed likely in recent days before US President Donald Trump and Senate Democrats struck a deal on Thursday that involved a two-week stopgap measure for DHS. A fuller government cessation again seemed to be on the table when Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, delayed a vote to advance the package on Thursday, a day before the January 30 deadline.
Days earlier, Democrats in the chamber came out against the funding package that would also fund the departments of Treasury, Labour, Health and Human Services and Transportation, among other federal agencies.
The showdown came after federal immigration agents shot to death a Minneapolis man last weekend, prompting a backlash over funding DHS, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol. The death was the second fatal shooting of an American in that city by federal agents in recent weeks.
Outcry after ICE killing of another US citizen
Outcry after ICE killing of another US citizen
Six of the 12 appropriations bills have already cleared both the House of Representatives and the Senate and been signed into law. The Senate was expected this week to take up the remaining six measures, which have already passed the House and were grouped together to allow for faster passage in the upper chamber.