Democrats Determined to Squander Advantage on DHS Funding
Republicans in Congress appear to be bending to Democratic demands to attach some conditions to future funding for the Department of Homeland Security. But those just-released conditions may not do much to change the trajectory of the brutal and deadly incursions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
An emerging potential deal would split the DHS appropriations bill off from the other five funding bills passed by the House last week, and pass that yearlong funding separately, while issuing a continuing resolution (CR) for the DHS funding at last year’s levels as negotiations ensue.
This reflects a Republican awareness that it would be untenable to hold other funding, including for the Defense Department, hostage because they don’t want to do their jobs and debate the future of DHS after the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) expressed his support for the idea to reporters on Wednesday. “At this juncture, the smart play is to carve out the homeland security bill, and we can fight over that, but in the meantime try to do a CR and pass the other bills,” Kennedy said. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) echoed this by saying he would “reserve optionality” to pass the five bills and do a CR on the DHS appropriation.
Many of these conditions are already part of ICE and CBP standards; the problem is a lack of enforcement.
Democrats have said all along that they would be willing to immediately pass the five other funding bills and avoid a partial shutdown there. This represents Republicans moving toward their position, however grudgingly.
But just as this is happening, the Democrats’ list of demands appears to have shrunk after internal deliberations.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released the Senate caucus’s set of asks on Wednesday. They included an end to roving patrols and a requirement for proper judicial warrants, limiting enforcement actions to known targets in conjunction with local law enforcement; standards on use of force that match those of the local police; and a “masks off, body cameras on” policy.
Schumer said that Senate Democrats are “united,” but these asks represent quite a bit less than other demands expressed by Senators over the past week. Arguably many of these conditions are already part of ICE and CBP standards; the problem is a lack of enforcement. Indeed, a new directive sent to ICE agents late Wednesday night instructed them to avoid talking to community members (“agitators,” to use their word) and to only target immigrants with criminal charges or convictions. That would encompass a good chunk of the Schumer demands.
While ending roving patrols and administrative warrants would severely limit street arrests that have caused mass chaos, enforcement and roundups would likely not end but move into the shadows, through worksite raids and transfers of arrested individuals into ICE custody. Local law enforcement could be commandeered into enforcing federal immigration policy under this framework as well.
Ideas like requiring cooperation with state and local investigations into ICE and CBP misconduct, returning CBP personnel to the border rather than interior enforcement, preventing enforcement in “sensitive locations” like schools or churches, and ending mass quotas for immigration arrests are not present in the Schumer list. And Schumer also doesn’t touch funding levels, nor does he attempt to claw back the surge funding for ICE that enables operations like those we’re seeing in Minnesota.
A useful comparison would be how Republicans responded to the surge in funding for the Internal Revenue Service in the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act. The moment they got leverage, Republicans forced substantial reductions in that funding, despite a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President in 2023-24. They have continued this approach ever since, including another hack at IRS funding in the funding bill that passed the House just last week with bipartisan support. There is now only about $10 billion of that $80 billion surge left, and nearly nothing for enforcement of the tax laws, the whole point of the policy.
Yet where Republican nullification of the IRS money is seen as a fact of life, the $75 billion ICE surge in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has been deemed untouchable by Democrats, at least in this round of asks.
Meanwhile, critical concepts that Schumer has taken off the table, like accountability for Pretti’s death, still face a struggle to move forward. A spokesperson for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), which is conducting an investigation into the shooting of Pretti, told the Prospect Wednesday that “federal investigators have not shared any information with Minnesota BCA agents.” A judge granted a temporary restraining order to preserve all evidence in the case, but that evidence has not been shared.
Officially, the two CBP agents who shot Pretti ten times, whose names we incredibly still do not know, were immediately placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation consisting of checking their actions against CBP use-of-force policy. There are no federal criminal or civil investigations into the shooting currently from the Justice Department. According to MS NOW, the agents are on paid administrative leave; the Prospect has attempted to confirm this, but a CBP spokesperson would only say: “The two officers involved are on administrative leave and have been since Saturday. This is standard protocol.”
Another term for paid leave is a vacation.
It’s unclear how negotiations will proceed. Even Schumer’s relatively narrow list contains elements that have been described by the White House as a nonstarter. Thune made it clear that he didn’t want to be involved in negotiations at all; he thinks Democrats and the Trump administration should talk directly. If the administration balks, Republicans may not deem it worthwhile to do the five bill/CR strategy as a prelude to talks that will go nowhere.
Meanwhile, the House Freedom Caucus has announced that it doesn’t want the DHS bill opened up at all, and if it is, they would try to add other pieces to it, like cutting funding for “sanctuary” city and state policies. From the other side of the aisle, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has released “non-negotiable” policy positions for DHS funding, including suspending ICE/CBP enforcement actions in Minnesota, barring detention of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, protecting sensitive locations, banishing Border Patrol to the border, redirecting Big Beautiful Bill funding of DHS away from mass detention and deportation, and a bunch more.
Democrats are also getting increasingly loud about the firing of Kristi Noem as Homeland Security secretary, and even Stephen Miller, who most observers believe is really running the show on the immigration putsch into cities. Schumer called for both of them to be ousted.
In the end, it’s hard to see a path where Republicans agree to negotiate on DHS conditions, the White House agrees, everything passes into law smoothly, and these conditions make a tangible difference in anyone’s lives.
Other than that, we’re in a good place as is.
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