The short-term funding bill approved last year to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history expires on Saturday, January 31, 2026, at midnight. After the senseless killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, MN, on Saturday, January 24, 2026, a funding package that was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and which was expected to pass in the U.S. Senate was derailed. The package includes billions of dollars for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Democratic Senators refuse to provide additional funding to DHS without meaningful guardrails to reign in ICE’s violence. We are now barreling towards a second, partial government shutdown which will impact lifesaving services that people living with and vulnerable to HIV depend on to remain healthy and housed. 

AIDS Foundation Chicago calls on Congress to: 

  • Decouple funding for DHS from the funding package 
  • Immediately pass funding for other key government departments, including for Labor, Health and Human Services which preserves funding for HIV services, and Labor, Housing and Urban Development, which includes a $24 million increase to the Housing Opportunities for Persons with HIV/AIDS (HOPWA) program 
  • Oppose any amendments that may be introduced as the package is renegotiated that may harm the communities we serve 
  • Vote NO on additional funding for DHS without necessary guardrails to reign in the dangerous and unconstitutional tactics ICE and Border Patrol have used to terrorize our communities 

ICE and Border Patrol have wrought havoc and destroyed lives in Chicago and other U.S. cities. Apart from the killing of Alex Pretti, DHS agents killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis earlier this month, just blocks away from where Alex was killed. Last year, on September 12, 2025, DHS agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez in Franklin Park, IL, and on October 4, 2025, an agent shot Miramar Martinez five times during Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, an attack she survived. Over the course of 2025, 32 people died in ICE custody, with at least one death ruled a homicide. This lawlessness has no place in the U.S., and we demand accountability. 

AFC urges Illinoisans to contact their representatives in Congress to demand full funding for HIV and housing programs and to reign in ICE by participating in AIDS United’s action alert, or by calling your members of Congress directly: Tell Congress: No HIV Funding Cuts – AIDS United.