Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has outlined his party’s key demands as Congress strives to avert another government shutdown, with the looming funding deadline set for the end of the week.

Following the recent shooting of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are voicing concerns about the need to limit the powers of President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.

Senate Democrats hold significant leverage in preventing a shutdown. As spending bills require 60 votes to pass, Republicans, who control just 53 seats, must secure Democratic support even if all Republican senators back the House-approved measures.

This scenario enhances Schumer’s influence, which he is using to highlight what he describes as the ‘chaos’ orchestrated by the Trump administration.

At a Wednesday press conference on Capitol Hill, Schumer asserted, “Under President Trump, Secretary Noem, and Stephen Miller, ICE has been unleashed without proper oversight.”

Schumer contended that “they consistently violate constitutional rights and intentionally avoid collaborating with state and local law enforcement,” a claim made despite Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s remark on X that his police’s role is to “ensure public safety, not enforce federal immigration laws.”

Still, Schumer rolled out a list of things needed to secure a vote for DHS from members of his caucus, which included a request to ‘end roving patrols,’ ‘masks off, body cameras on,’ and a need to ‘tighten the rules governing the use of warrants and require ICE coordination with state and local law enforcement.’

The latest round of federal funding expires at the end of January – this Saturday – without Senate action.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat speaks to members of the media after the weekly Senate Democratic caucus policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on January 28, 2026

Alex Pretti, who was fatally shot by U.S. immigration agents as they tried to detain him in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is seen in this image obtained by Reuters on January 25, 2026

Law enforcement officers, including HSI and ICE agents, take people into custody at an immigration court in Phoenix, Arizona, on May 21, 2025

Seven Democratic senators previously sided with Republicans in November to end the last shutdown: Catherine Cortez Masto, Dick Durbin, John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Jacky Rosen, and Jeanne Shaheen. Independent Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with Democrats, joined them.

Now, Department of Homeland Security funding threatens to derail the package — putting those same moderate Democrats in a bind.

Rosen noted Wednesday that she was in favor of redirecting ‘the excess funds for ICE to local law enforcement’ that were provided to the federal agency in the GOP-led tax bill, which was signed into law by Trump last July.

Fetterman is toeing a fine line, both defending the work of ICE agents ‘deporting criminal migrants in our country’, while also calling for Noem to be ousted and for the agency to come under ‘new leadership.’

Kaine argued on the Senate floor late Wednesday that he currently plans to reject the  House-passed government funding package until his colleagues ‘reach a bipartisan path forward that protects Americans from reckless violence at the hands of federal agents.’