The United States government has entered what is expected to be a brief shutdown after Congress failed to approve a deal to keep a wide swath of operations funded ahead of a midnight deadline.
After hours of delay, the US Senate passed the spending package by a bipartisan vote of 71 to 29 late on Friday, but the House of Representatives is not expected to vote on the new budget bills until Monday at the earliest.
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US President Donald Trump must then sign the bills into law.
As a result, the partial shutdown of the US government took effect at 12:01 am Eastern time (0501 GMT). The shutdown is likely to be brief.
Lawmakers from both parties have been working to ensure a debate over immigration enforcement does not disrupt other government operations, despite mounting Democratic anger over the killing of two people by immigration agents in Minnesota.
This is a marked contrast from last fall, when Republicans and Democrats dug into their positions in a dispute over healthcare, prompting a shutdown that lasted a record 43 days and cost the US economy an estimated $11bn.
“Technically, there will be a partial government shutdown come midnight on Saturday,” Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan said earlier on Friday, reporting from Washington, DC.
“The earliest that the House of Representatives can take a look at the changes, which the US Senate approved late on Friday, is not before Monday. That’s because they’ve been in recess all this week. They should be coming back to Washington this weekend,” Jordan said.
But there is also a concern the shutdown could drag out longer, given political polarisation around Trump’s administration’s harsh immigration raids and the killing of US citizens at those operations.
“So there is the expectation that this could be resolved early next week. But there is the possibility that it may not be,” Jordan added.
The funding impasse has been driven by Democratic anger over aggressive immigration enforcement following the fatal shootings of two US citizens – Alex Pretti and Renee Good – by federal agents in separate incidents this month in the northern city of Minneapolis amid a violent operation against undocumented migrants.
The killings in Minneapolis have become a flashpoint that has hardened opposition to approving new money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) without changes to how immigration agencies operate.
“The nation is reaching a breaking point,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote. “The American people are demanding that Congress step up and force change.”
“Instead of going after drug smugglers, child predators, and human traffickers, the Trump Administration is wasting valuable resources targeting peaceful protestors in Chicago and Minneapolis,” Senate Democratic Minority Whip Dick Durbin posted on social media.
“This Administration continues to make Americans less safe.”
As lawmakers in both parties called for investigations into the fatal shootings, Trump said he didn’t want a shutdown and negotiated the rare deal with Schumer, his frequent adversary. Trump then encouraged members of both parties to cast a “much needed Bipartisan ‘YES’ vote.”
Under the deal negotiated between the White House and Senate Democratic leaders, lawmakers approved five outstanding funding bills to finance most of the federal government through the end of the fiscal year in September.
The deal approved by the Senate separates funding for the DHS – which oversees immigration agencies – from the broader government funding package, allowing lawmakers to approve spending for agencies such as the Pentagon and the Department of Labor while they consider new restrictions on how federal immigration agents operate.
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