U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, says she’s “exploring all options” after Democrats said they will withhold support for immigration funding, threatening a bipartisan effort to avoid another partial government shutdown.
The funding package before the Senate, which includes $10 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, came under fire after a Border Patrol agent shot and killed a man in Minneapolis Saturday. The shooting was the second killing by an immigration officer of a U.S. citizen in that city in recent weeks.
Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined other members of Maine’s delegation in calling for an independent investigation.
Collins and other Republicans are assessing whether they can separate immigration funding from the rest of the legislation to fund the government, the New York Times reported. The proposal includes roughly $64 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and Border Patrol.
“I’m exploring all options,” Collins told the paper. “We have five other bills that are really vital, and I’m relatively confident they would pass.”
A Collins spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The spending package passed the U.S. House last week with funding for immigration enforcement intact with the help of seven Democrats, including Rep. Jared Golden of Maine.
A spokesperson for Golden did not immediately respond to requests to discuss the funding on Sunday.
“The incident in Minneapolis is tragic,” said Golden, D-2nd District, in a statement from his office Saturday night after the shooting. “This requires an investigation conducted by an independent agency. It is well past time to lower the temperature.”
Collins said Saturday’s shooting “underscores the importance of equipping federal law enforcement agents with training and body cameras,” which the New York Times reports is included in the most recent funding proposal.
Federal officials have yet to identify the Border Patrol agent who shot Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said Pretti was an “armed suspect.” Videos of the incident show Pretti was not holding a weapon when agents approached him. Agents appeared to take any weapon Pretti had on his person before shooting him, according to the Associated Press.
Pretti’s death follows the shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.
Meanwhile, most Maine Democrats expressed outrage at Saturday’s events.
Gov. Janet Mills, one of several Democratic candidates vying for Collins’ seat in the Senate, asked Trump to pull ICE agents out of Maine. She also requested to meet with Trump about immigration enforcement.
On social media, Senate candidate Graham Platner called the shooting a “public execution” and criticized additional funding to ICE and Border Patrol.
“ICE and CBP now have a larger budget than all local and state law agencies in the country combined,” Platner stated Saturday. “This administration does not care about law and order. They only want fascism and fear.”
Sen. Angus King, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, told CBS’ Face the Nation that he can’t support the proposal for ICE funding “under the circumstances.” King said he hopes that Republicans will break up the various funding proposals so senators can vote on ICE funding separately.
King has not weighed in on the Minneapolis shooting. On Saturday, his office said he’s still reviewing the incident. On CBS, the senator criticized ICE’s ongoing operation in Maine, which federal officials say was designed to target people with criminal histories.
Of 100 reported arrests so far, King said, only about a dozen detainees were included on ICE’s list of the “worst of the worst” criminals.
“What they’re really doing is going after people who are here,” King said on CBS. “They’re asylum seekers, they’re in the process, they have green cards.”
Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, voted against the DHS funding proposal, but supported other government funding measures in the package that passed the House on Thursday.
“We did not want to see another government shutdown,” Pingree said in an interview with The Hill/News Nation on Sunday. “But this Homeland Security bill is a bill too far.”
Pingree said on Saturday that she had a “good idea” that Pretti’s death “will be yet another unjustified killing.”
At a protest in Lewiston that afternoon, Pingree encouraged attendees to continue protesting and recording what they see from ICE, although she acknowledged the potential for danger.
“I know we all do this at great personal risk,” Pingree said in a video from the rally. “When you stand there with a camera in your hand, you take the same personal risk as Renee Nicole Good, who lost her life.”
