A pair of shootings on Thursday, one involving a suspect linked to ISIS, has Republicans sounding the alarm to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), while Democrats dig further into their position.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus again blocked a full-year funding bill for the agency, as well as multiple attempts to provide temporary funding, on Thursday. Just as the vote ended and as lawmakers fled Washington, D.C., an active shooter incident at the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield, Mich., erupted.
The suspect died in a shootout with police in that incident. Meanwhile, another shooting at Old Dominion University in Virginia with a suspect previously imprisoned for supporting ISIS led to one person killed and two others injured.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital, “At some point, the consequences, impacts of not funding DHS are real.”
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Senate Republicans have tried and failed three times to pass full-year funding for the agency, and Thune noted that it had been two weeks since Schumer and Democrats responded to the latest compromise offer from the White House.
When asked if the latest shooting could make Democrats budge, he said, “I’m not sure.”
“But it’s a dangerous game and people are going to get hurt,” Thune said.
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The funding impasse has caused the agency to be shuttered for nearly one month, with little hope in Congress that a deal can be reached soon. Republicans have warned that because of President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, there could be increased threats in the U.S. that DHS would have to handle without proper funding.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., blasted Schumer and Democrats for continuing their blockade and accused them of trying to “peel apart” DHS.
“They are so beholden and detached to the far-left component of this nation that they don’t care about everybody else,” Barrasso said. “We’ve had terrorist attacks right here in the homeland — two in the last two weeks.”
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Democrats spent much of Thursday trying to fund the agency one piece at a time in a bid to carve out funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for which they have sought stringent reforms that Republicans say go too far.
Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer’s office for comment on whether the latest shootings would change his calculus on the shutdown, but it did not immediately respond.
Instead, Schumer released a statement on the synagogue shooting that did not mention the agency or the funding battle.
“Antisemitism is not theoretical. It is real, and it is deadly,” Schumer said. “In solidarity with good-thinking people everywhere, it must be faced head-on, denounced and defeated. Every one of us has a responsibility to not just stand up against this pernicious hate, but to fight it wholeheartedly, no matter where it comes from.”
