It took not one but two killings of unarmed white American citizens by immigration enforcement agents for the Democrats to commit to withholding funds from the Department of Homeland Security, the agency of which Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the border patrol – the killers – are part.

After the first killing, seven House Democrats nevertheless voted with Republicans to allocate $64.4bn to the DHS, including $10bn for ICE. The bill they approved contained none of their party’s “commonsense” reforms, such as prohibition of masks and the requirement that agents obtain a judicial warrant before busting down a person’s door – not just an administrative warrant signed by the same agency invading the home. This last “reform”, which the Republican party rejected, is the soul of the fourth amendment, without which no one is safe anywhere from the state’s intrusion.

After the second killing, these Congress members hustled to cover their butts. “I failed to view the DHS funding vote as a referendum on the illegal and immoral conduct of ICE in Minneapolis,” the New York representative Tom Suozzi said in a statement. He promised to do better next time. The Texas representative Vicente Gonzalez explained, with equal credibility, that his yes vote “was not to fund ICE”, but “to ensure that our agencies here in south Texas were funded”. Would those agencies include the border patrol? He didn’t say.

Several of the shamefaced seven said they had to fund the government, no matter how morally corrupt, because a government shutdown would be worse.

With the bill under Senate consideration, a partial shutdown now appears likely, with the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, vowing that his caucus will reject any funding bill that includes money for DHS without key restrictions. What’s more, snow and ice covering half the states may prevent........

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