Connecticut’s U.S. senators were split on a vote Friday night on a government funding deal that avoids a prolonged partial shutdown and gives Congress more time to negotiate reforms to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Senate muscled through passing a $1.2 trillion deal in a 71-29 vote that included support from members in both parties. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., voted for the funding package, while U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., opposed it.

The agreement — brokered by Senate Democrats and President Donald Trump — separated the U.S. Department of Homeland Security bill from the rest of the package that provides funding for the remaining five agencies through September. The DHS bill will instead get funded through a stopgap measure, calling a continuing resolution, for two weeks. That buys lawmakers more time to negotiate additional reforms to ICE.

Because the Senate voted on the funding bills only hours before the deadline, some government funding will lapse over the weekend, but it’s expected to be a brief and limited shutdown. The House plans to take it up on Monday before the bills can be sent over to Trump to become law. If it passes, that will avoid a broader partial shutdown.

Congress appeared on track earlier this month to pass fiscal year 2026 funding ahead of the deadline to keep much of the government open. But two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal agents upended the plan. Congressional Democrats came out forcefully against funding ICE, which is part of Homeland Security, without more comprehensive reforms. And that clash raised the odds of a partial shutdown.

Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, ultimately agreed to Democrats’ push to reconfigure the legislation: detach the DHS bill from the overall funding package that also included funding for Labor, Health and Human Services and Education; Defense; Transportation and Housing and Urban Development; and the State Department. They also agreed to funding Homeland Security at existing levels for only two weeks.

They struck a deal on Thursday evening, but it ended up hitting a late-night snag and pushed off voting to Friday, just hours before the midnight deadline. Trump, who wasn’t involved in shutdown negotiations last time, encouraged a bipartisan vote on the agreement.

“The only thing that can slow our Country down is another long and damaging Government Shutdown,” Trump posted on the social media platform Truth Social. “I am working hard with Congress to ensure that we are able to fully fund the Government, without delay.”

The path to a Friday night vote took some dramatic twists and turns. Lawmakers appeared on track to speed up consideration of the deal Thursday night, but a Republican senator put a hold on the process. All 100 senators need to get behind any time agreements since it only takes one member to object. The Senate ultimately adjourned around 11 p.m. on Thursday with no movement.

The Senate voted earlier Thursday on the original government funding package that combined the DHS bill with the other measures to fund the remaining five federal agencies. Because a deal had not been locked in at that point, Senate Democrats and a handful of Republicans voted down the legislation.

But the Senate came back into session Friday morning and worked throughout the day to finalize the votes. After a series of amendment votes that were all blocked, senators approved the final package on Friday evening, which sends it back over to the House. The lower chamber already voted on the package, but they need to take another vote since that one included new funding through September for Homeland Security.

Many congressional Democrats see this as an overall win. Earlier this week, Senate Republicans initially resisted their calls to separate the legislation but ultimately agreed to that approach. But Democrats still need to do the heavy lifting to rein in ICE through the DHS funding bill.

The White House and Senate Republicans’ willingness to negotiate shows a very different approach to Democrats’ demands, compared to the last funding fight over expiring health care subsidies. That standoff led to a record-long 43-day shutdown in the fall.

Murphy called the change in public opinion about ICE and the shift among some Republicans “a credit to the people of Minneapolis.”

“I think when we stick together and we fight for our values, we can win. I didn’t like the fact that we sort of gave up on the health care fight too early,” Murphy said on his way to Senate votes on Thursday. “I thought we could have won that fight. This is an opportunity for us to stick together and win on behalf of the American people.”

On Thursday, Murphy said he was hearing arguments about supporting the package that would keep flat funding for Homeland Security for another two weeks. But Murphy, who is the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, believed the Senate had enough time to hash out a deal on ICE.

“I want us to act with urgency, and I don’t think there’s any reason that we couldn’t get a deal done this weekend,” he said at the time.

As a deal was coming together Thursday, Blumenthal signaled he would support it, as long as the continuing resolution for Homeland Security was “a matter of weeks, not months.” He said he viewed the short-term bill as a vehicle for getting through reforms to the immigration enforcement agency.

But the real challenge still lies ahead for Congress: negotiating guardrails for ICE over the next two weeks before another funding deadline for Homeland Security.

And progressive groups are likely to hold lawmakers’ feet to the fire during those negotiations since the current deal didn’t satisfy many in the Democrats’ base. They were disappointed that Democrats would fund DHS through a two-week continuing resolution without immediately securing any of their sought-after reforms to ICE.

“Minority] Leader [Chuck] Schumer should ask the Minnesotans who are watching their neighbors get killed in cold blood if a deal with no plan to stop ICE is enough right now,” MoveOn Civic Action spokesperson Britt Jacovich said in a statement after news of the deal.

Democrats have a list of demands in order to support full-year funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Some of those include tightening rules around warrants, ending roving patrols, ensuring independent investigations and new protocols for ICE agents like banning face coverings, wearing body cameras and displaying proper identification.

“I understand we’re not going to fix everything in this bill. Obviously, I have a very long list of things that I think are wrong at the Department of Homeland Security, but the reforms we put on the table are impactful, and they’re possible,” Murphy said Thursday.

But Republicans, who didn’t want to see DHS taken out of the funding package, also have their own priorities, including a crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities.

While the two weeks give them more time to hash out those differences, a deal isn’t guaranteed. And Democrats say they won’t accept new funding for DHS if they don’t secure enough provisions to hold ICE accountable.

“If there is no reform, we need to shut down the DHS until there is reform,” Blumenthal told reporters on Thursday. “There is nothing in these reforms that requires ICE to do anything different than your local and state police departments are required right now to do. There’s nothing radical about them.”

While long-term DHS funding remains in limbo, both parties have acknowledged that ICE remains largely funded. The enforcement agency received an additional $75 billion allocated over four years in Republicans’ “big beautiful bill” for expanding the agency’s detention capacity and hiring more officers. One of the Democratic amendments on Friday sought to redirect that funding to other domestic priorities, but it failed.

But outside of ICE and Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security also oversees TSA, FEMA and the U.S. Coast Guard.