Virginia’s new Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger is being widely mocked for a photo of her grilling, with many on social media expressing alarm and disgust over what appears to be some type of shredded meat over the fire.

Spanberger, who ran as a moderate Democrat, has been criticized for enacting radical day one policies, including moving to end cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and restore diversity, equity and inclusion. But this week the primary criticism against her was over a photo she posted of herself smiling over a grill on Thursday with the caption, “Order up.”

The post garnered immediate mockery, with many comparing it to the viral photo of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in which the senator could be seen smiling with several of what appeared to be uncooked burger patties, one of which already had cheese on it.

Conservative commentator Greg Price reacted to the photo of Spanberger alongside images of Schumer, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe in front of grills, with the caption, “I hope Democrat politicians never stop doing photo ops behind a grill.”

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Though the new governor was wearing a black apron with the words, “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner,” her post was flooded with comments asking what the strange-looking meat on the grill truly was.

“Ma’am, what is that?” reacted independent journalist Breanna Morello.

Popular satire account Three Year Letterman commented, “How many neighborhood cats are missing” and “arrest her.”

“Did you cut your meat with a weed wacker?” wrote Parker Thayer, a researcher at Capital Research Center.

Heritage Foundation research fellow Jason Bedrick commented, “What you did to that meat violates the Geneva Convention.”

Another user, conservative commentator David Freeman, simply reacted, “No thanks.”

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Beef supplier Merriwether Farms wrote, “Virginia is in trouble.”

In 2024, Schumer took similar criticism over a Father’s Day post, which the New York Democrat eventually deleted, showing off his backyard grill.

Our family has lived in an apartment building for all our years, but my daughter and her wife just bought a house with a backyard and for the first time we’re having a barbeque with hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill!” Schumer posted on X on Sunday. “Father’s Day Heaven!”

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The post was immediately criticized by conservatives accusing him of placing cheese on one of the burger patties prematurely and not knowing how to properly grill the burger.

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“Chuck is making an E. coli with cheese,” Cavalry founding partner Michael Duncan posted on X. 

Spanberger’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — A dispute over whether federal immigration agents should be allowed to wear masks during enforcement operations has become one of the biggest obstacles to keeping the Department of Homeland Security funded, pushing the government toward a partial shutdown early Saturday.

Democrats have described the practice as corrosive to public trust, arguing that masked agents create the appearance of a “secret police” force. Republican lawmakers, President Trump and his top advisors, meanwhile, have drawn a hard line against requiring officers to remove their face coverings, insisting that doing so would expose them to harassment, threats and online doxxing.

“They want our law enforcement to be totally vulnerable and put them in a lot of danger,” Trump said at a White House event Thursday. He added that it would be “very, very hard to approve” Democrats’ demands, such as unmasking federal officers.

The standoff over masking stalled negotiations as lawmakers raced to meet a funding deadline for the Department of Homeland Security at midnight Friday. Without a deal, key agency functions — from airport security to disaster relief coordination — could be affected if the shutdown drags on.

As with every shutdown, the agency’s essential functions will continue to operate, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant Homeland Security secretary for public affairs, said in a statement. But employees performing those functions at agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, and the Transportation Security Administration could go without pay if the shutdown stretches for weeks.

The heads of those agencies told the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee on Wednesday that the shutdown is expected to create severe and lasting challenges.

Vice Adm. Thomas Allan, the acting vice commandant of the Coast Guard, said a shutdown would delay maintenance for boats and aircraft, and halt pay for 56,000 active-duty reserve and civilian personnel. Ha Nguyen McNeill, acting administrator of TSA, recounted how the last government shutdown affected her workers and spiked wait times at airports.

“We heard reports of officers sleeping in their cars at airports to save money on gas, selling their blood and plasma and taking on second jobs to make ends meet,” she said, adding that some are still recovering from the financial impact.

Operations within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — the agencies that are central to the budget impasse — are likely to be the least affected. That’s because both agencies still have access to $75 billion in funding approved last year as part of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

By midday Friday, it remained unclear when the partial shutdown would end, as lawmakers left Washington for a security conference in Munich and progress between Democratic and White House negotiators remained nebulous.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters on Friday when asked about cutting a deal. “We always have to protect our law enforcement.”

The partial government shutdown comes at a moment of acute public anger at the agency’s approach to immigration enforcement, which has included the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis.

Since the shootings, the Trump administration has tried to quell tensions. Border policy advisor Tom Homan said Thursday that the administration was ending its immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced earlier this month that the agency would be acquiring and issuing body cameras to federal agents. Trump also said he wants to employ a “softer touch” to immigration enforcement after the killings of Good and Pretti.

But Democrats maintain that they need reforms written into law. Among their demands is requiring officers to wear and turn on body cameras, banning them from wearing masks, and ending the practice of “roving patrols” and instead requiring that they carry out only targeted operations.

“We will not support an extension of the status quo, a status quo that permits masked secret police to barge into people’s homes without warrants, no guardrails and zero oversight from independent authorities,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday.

Todd M. Lyons, the acting director of ICE, told a Senate panel Thursday that he does not want to see federal agents masked either, but said he is hesitant to bar face coverings because the threats to agents are too severe.

“I would work with this committee and any committee to work with holding individuals accountable that doxx ICE agents, because ICE agents don’t want to be masked,” Lyons said. “They’re honorable men and women, but the threats against their family are real.”

Federal immigration officials are more supportive of body cameras.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott told a House committee on Tuesday that he supports expanding the use of body cameras, but said more funding is needed to hire personnel to oversee the rollout.

“Fund the entire program so that we can be transparent and that we can make sure America knows what we’re doing, because that trust is critically important,” he said.

Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn., said that while the White House has made some “tweaks around oversight,” its actions continue to fall short.

The association, which represents 18,000 immigration attorneys, has urged Congress to refuse more funding for ICE and CBP before implementing reforms.

“The American public wants and deserves real, meaningful guardrails that are written into law that ensure this administration — and, quite frankly, any administration — will abide by the Constitution and respect fundamental principles of due process,” Johnson said Wednesday on a call with reporters.

“Congress has a critical opportunity right now to meet that demand,” he added.

Republican Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky talk during a hearing Thursday on oversight of federal immigration agencies.

(Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images)

So far, Democrats maintain they will continue to bock funding bills without accountability measures in place.

California’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, were among the Senate Democrats who helped block passage of funding bills Thursday that would have averted a shutdown because they lacked accountability measures.

“I will not support more funding for ICE until there are new guardrails to rein in its lawless conduct,” Schiff wrote on X. “I’m a no on anything but real reform.”

Padilla said he would be a “firm no” until lawmakers agree that federal immigration officers need to be held accountable.

“Donald Trump and Republicans want Americans to forget about their lawless immigration roundup, but we won’t,” Padilla said.

On January 21, ICE agents in Portland, Maine, arrested Emanuel Landila, an asylum seeker from Angola, legally working as a corrections officer recruit. “Good afternoon.” Hours later, Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce publicly defended the officer in training, whom he’d vetted and hired a year ago. “In fact, he was squeaky clean. Squeaky clean.” Sheriff Joyce then delivered one of the most scathing critiques of ICE tactics by local police. “In the three minutes, they got out, they pulled a guy from the car, handcuffed him, put him in the car. They all took off, leaving his car with the windows down, the lights on, unsecure and unoccupied. Folks, that’s bush league policing.” “This guy, I knew, was not a criminal alien.” We caught up with Joyce in Washington, D.C., days after he criticized ICE operations in Maine. He’d come for the National Sheriffs Association annual conference. – “How are you?” – “Good day, Kevin Joyce.” And to share his concerns with lawmakers. “They came at him like storm troopers. The tactics. I called them bush league because it is. This is not professionalism, but it’s meeting a quota. And you can’t set quotas in law enforcement because bad things are going to happen.” To carry out mass deportations, ICE needs the cooperation of local law enforcement, mostly in the form of access to local jails. But sending thousands of masked ICE and Border Patrol agents into American cities has frayed those relations. At the gathering in D.C., hundreds of sheriffs from around the country came for trainings and meetings. “They haven’t stopped one million pounds of cocaine, enough to fill 24 or 42 dump trucks.” And to meet with government officials. Many called for better communication from ICE and more respect. “The communication is worst of the worst. We still can work together, but it takes cooperation. You simply just can’t come in our cities, overshadow us, and then expect us to respond to you.” “It creates a division within my own profession, and there’s a right way to do our job. And there’s also a wrong way to do the job. So what you’re seeing is this type of enforcement that is not making us safer. It’s dividing us.” Whether and how police cooperate with immigration enforcement has long been controversial, but especially now. “Give us access to the illegal alien public safety threat in the safety and security of a jail. Get these agreements in place. That means less agents on the street.” Over the past year, more than 1,000 law enforcement agencies have signed partnership agreements with ICE. Many hold jail inmates for ICE to pick up. “They’re already in custody. It keeps them from having to go out and arrest them in the field. They just come to our jail, pick them up, take them away.” An increasing number of states are barring or restricting some police from working with ICE. Other states have done the opposite and now require police to cooperate with ICE. “My personal opinion, I like it. We get rid of them. If we’re getting rid of the people that don’t need to be here, then it’s great.” “What was the longest that ICE held somebody at your jail?” “I want to say one was 100 days.” Many sheriffs rent out jail space for ICE detention as a way to bring in revenue. “They paid $150 per inmate, per day.” “And about how much did that come to a year?” “About $3 million. For 33 years, we’ve held ICE inmates at the Cumberland County jail. Two hours after my press conference, they pulled their 50 inmates.” In a statement to The Times, a D.H.S. spokesperson said ICE withdrew its detainees from the Cumberland County jail over the hire of illegal aliens and subpoenaed the Sheriff’s Office for its employment records. Joyce said he vetted Landila appropriately. After three weeks in detention, a federal judge ordered Landila released on bond. Sheriff Joyce is assessing whether his office can still employ him. “Kind of wanted to stop by and thank you for your efforts on the increase in immigration issues that we had a couple of weeks ago.” After the conference, Sheriff Joyce met with Maine lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are threatening to block funding for D.H.S. if immigration agents are not held to higher policing standards. “So one of the reasons we’re holding up the Homeland Security bill is to talk about adding this kind of criteria that we expect of our own police officers: not wearing masks, requiring body cameras, having actual judicial warrants before they bust down the doors of your house or haul you off somewhere. So things that people have come to expect from law enforcement and that are critical to the ability for citizens to trust law enforcement.” “We have to go back to our cities with a message of things are going to get better by the summer. If we don’t, it’s going to be a long summer. What I worry about is law enforcement fighting with federal government.”