WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats are threatening to block legislation that would fund the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies Thursday, potentially bringing the government a step closer to a partial shutdown if Republicans and the White House do not agree to new restrictions on President Donald Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement.

As the country reels from the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis, irate Senate Democrats laid out a list of demands ahead of a Thursday morning test vote, including that officers take off their masks and identify themselves and obtain warrants for arrest. If those are not met, Democrats say they are prepared to block the wide-ranging spending bill, denying Republicans the votes they need to pass it and triggering a shutdown at midnight on Friday.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Democrats won’t provide needed votes until U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “reined in and overhauled.”

“The American people support law enforcement, they support border security, they do not support ICE terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens,” Schumer said.

There were some signs of possible progress as the White House has appeared open to trying to strike a deal with Democrats to avert a shutdown. The two sides were talking as of Wednesday evening, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who requested anonymity to speak about the private talks. One possible option discussed would be to strip the funding for the Homeland Security Department from the larger bill, as Schumer has requested, and extend it for a short period to allow time for negotiations, the person said. The rest of the bill would fund government agencies until September.

Still, with no agreement yet and an uncertain path ahead, the standoff threatened to plunge the country into another shutdown just two months after Democrats blocked a spending bill over expiring federal health care subsidies, a dispute that closed the government for 43 days as Republicans refused to negotiate.

That shutdown ended when a small group of moderate Democrats broke away to strike a deal with Republicans, but Democrats are more unified this time after the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents.

Democrats lay out their demands

There’s a lot of “unanimity and shared purpose” within the Democratic caucus, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith said after a lunch meeting Wednesday.

“Boil it all down, what we are talking about is that these lawless ICE agents should be following the same rules that your local police department does,” Smith said. “There has to be accountability.”

Amid the administration’s immigration crackdown, Schumer said Democrats are asking the White House to “end roving patrols” in cities and coordinate with local law enforcement on immigration arrests, including requiring tighter rules for warrants.

Democrats also want an enforceable code of conduct so agents are held accountable when they violate rules. Schumer said agents should be required to have “masks off, body cameras on” and carry proper identification, as is common practice in most law enforcement agencies.

The Democratic caucus is united in those “common sense reforms” and the burden is on Republicans to accept them, Schumer said, as he has pushed for the Homeland spending to be separated out to avoid a broader shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has indicated that he might be open to considering some of the Democrats’ demands, but he encouraged Democrats and the White House to talk and find agreement.

Many obstacles to a deal

As the two sides negotiated, it was still unclear whether they could agree on anything that would satisfy Democrats who want Trump’s aggressive crackdown to end.

The White House had invited some Democrats for a discussion to better understand their positions and avoid a partial government shutdown, a senior White House official said, but the meeting did not happen. The official requested anonymity to discuss the private invitation.

The House passed the six remaining funding bills last week and sent them to the Senate as a package, making it more difficult to strip out the homeland security portion as Democrats have demanded. Republicans could break the package apart with the consent of all 100 senators or through a series of votes that would extend past the Friday deadline.

Even if the Senate can resolve the issue, House Republicans have said they do not want any changes to the bill they have passed. In a letter to Trump on Tuesday, the conservative House Freedom Caucus wrote that its members stand with the president and ICE.

“The package will not come back through the House without funding for the Department of Homeland Security,” according to the letter.

Republican opposition

Several Republican senators have said they would be fine with Democrats’ request to separate the Homeland Security funds for further debate and pass the other bills in the package. But it might be more difficult to for Democrats to find broad GOP support for their demands on ICE.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said he’s OK with separating the bills, but is opposed to the Democrats’ proposal to require the immigration enforcement officers to unmask and show their faces, even as he blamed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for decisions that he said are “tarnishing” the agency’s reputation.

“You know, there’s a lot of vicious people out there, and they’ll take a picture of your face, and the next thing you know, your children or your wife or your husband are being threatened at home,” Tillis said. “And that’s just the reality of the world that we’re in.”

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said that “what happened over the weekend is a tragedy,” but Democrats shouldn’t punish Americans with a shutdown and a “political stunt.”

Democrats say they won’t back down.

“It is truly a moral moment,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “I think we need to take a stand.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials are expected to keep their short-term interest rate unchanged Wednesday after three cuts last year, ignoring huge pressure for lower borrowing costs from the White House in favor of waiting to see how the economy evolves.

The central bank’s rate reductions last year were intended to shore up the economy and prevent a sharper deterioration in the job market, after hiring slowed to a near-crawl in the wake of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs last April. Yet there are signs that unemployment has stabilized and the economy could be picking up. At the same time, inflation remains stubbornly above the Fed’s 2% target. All those trends argue for keeping rates where they are.

A key issue that Chair Jerome Powell will likely address at his news conference Wednesday is how long the Fed will remain on hold. The rate-setting committee remains split between those officials opposed to further cuts until inflation comes down, and those who want to lower rates to further support hiring.

In December, just 12 of the 19 participants in the committee’s meetings supported at least one more rate cut this year. Most economists forecast the Fed will cut twice this year, most likely at the June meeting or later.

Fed officials meet this week in the shadow of unprecedented pressure from the Trump White House. Powell said Jan. 11 that the Fed had received subpoenas from the Justice Department as part of a criminal investigation into his congressional testimony about a $2.5 billion building renovation. Powell in an unusually blunt video statement said the subpoenas were a pretext to punish the Fed for not cutting rates more quickly.

And last week, the Supreme Court took up Trump’s attempt from last year to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud, which she denies. No president has fired a governor in the Fed’s 112-year history. The justices at an oral argument appeared to be leaning toward allowing her to stay in her job until the case is resolved.

At the same time, Trump has suggested he is close to naming a new Fed Chair, to replace Powell once his term ends in May. The announcement could come as soon as this week, though it has been delayed before.

The president’s efforts to pressure the Fed may have backfired, economists say, as Republicans in the Senate voiced support for Powell and threatened to block Trump’s replacement chair.

“The last couple of weeks have been pretty positive for Fed independence,” said Patricia Zobel, a former official at the New York Fed and now head of macroeconomic research at Guggenheim Invesments.

Even so, all the turmoil may have led Powell to hunker down as he nears the end of his term as chair. Vincent Reinhart, a former Fed economist and now chief economist at BNY Investments, noted that Powell has given just one speech touching on the economy since September.

He could be letting other Fed officials take on the job of explaining why the central bank may hold off on rate cuts in the coming months, Reinhart said. It also underscores that the chair does not make decisions on rates alone, he added,

“The contribution of Chair Powell to news about our understanding of the next Fed move has been as small as it’s ever been, over his tenure,” Reinhart said.

Only 12 of the 19 members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee have a vote, including all seven members of the board of governors, the president of the New York Fed, and a rotating group of four presidents from the regional Fed banks.

This year, Beth Hammack, president of the Cleveland Fed; Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Fed; Lorie Logan, president of the Dallas Fed; and Anna Paulson, president of the Philadelphia Fed, will vote on rate decisions. All have recently expressed some skepticism of the need for further cuts anytime soon.

In a speech earlier this month, Paulson said an improving economy should allow more rate cuts later in the year.

“I see inflation moderating, the labor market stabilizing and growth coming in around 2% this year,” she said. “If all of that happens, then some modest further adjustments” to the Fed’s key rate “would likely be appropriate later in the year.”

Larger-than-usual tax refunds over the next few months should help fuel more consumer spending, economists expect. And faster growth could eventually boost hiring, which has been noticeably weak even as the economy is expanding.

With businesses barely adding jobs, consumers remain gloomy about the economy. The Conference Board’s measure of consumer confidence dropped to an 11-year low in January, the business research group said Tuesday.