Will Congress Find a Way to Fund ICE?
George Caldwell /
Republicans have a problem. With just two weeks before a deadline to avert a partial government shutdown, how do they get Democrats to fund deportation efforts?
In the wake of Renee Good’s death in a shooting involving ICE officers in Minnesota, Democrats are slamming deportation efforts, possibly putting the annual homeland security bill in jeopardy.
How to Fund Homeland?
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, likened ICE agents to a “gestapo rounding up individuals,” in reference to Nazi Germany’s secret police force, on Jan. 13.
Aguilar explained Democrats are seeking policy riders on the homeland security bill in order to rein in ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
“We like passing appropriations bills, but the appropriations bills have to be fair,” he said of the DHS funding bill.
There are four bills left for the House of Representatives to pass: one funding labor, health and education; a second funding transportation, housing, and urban development; a third funding defense, and a fourth funding homeland security.
The homeland security bill was originally meant to be attached to a package funding national security and the state department, as well as financial regulatory institutions. The House subsequently excluded homeland from the package, which passed on Jan. 14.
“Democrats put additional language forward to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. It’s not language that [Republicans] could support. And so ultimately, the homeland bill fell out of the package… House Democrats want accountability and oversight,” Aguilar said of the homeland security bill’s exclusion.
Aguilar added that DHS “should have to continue to testify to Congress as to what they are doing to look out for the American people.”
“It’s a politically very sensitive topic,” top House Republican Tom Cole, R-Okla., said of the DHS bill on Jan. 13. “That’s why we decided not to push ahead with a Homeland bill this week.”
The exclusion of the homeland bill allowed the state department funding bill—legislation funding foreign aid and humanitarian projects, which are generally supported by Democrats—to pass without having to be attached to funding for deportation efforts.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Democrats’ leading appropriator in the House, praised the package, saying it “continues Democrats’ rejection of cuts proposed by the Trump White House and Republicans in Congress.”
Republicans could still bundle the homeland security bill together with the remaining bills in the House, although that carries the risk of jeopardizing other funding areas.
To be sure, House leadership has so far been successful at settling disagreements.
Just last week, Republicans were able to use a “bifurcated rule” to cobble together various House coalitions and pass a three-bill package, despite some conservatives’ opposition to the Commerce-Justice-Science bill.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., projected optimism on Tuesday about passing all the bills, telling reporters leadership is “very optimistic” about passing the final four appropriations bills.
The Senate
In the Senate, the partisan chasm is widening on homeland security.
On Monday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., an appropriator, called for “no more money for DHS [Department of Homeland Security] without accountability.”
Fellow appropriator Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., similarly said, “I think it is reasonable for Democrats speaking on behalf of the majority of the American public who don’t approve of what ICE is doing to say, ‘If you want to fund the Department of Homeland Security, I want to fund a Department of Homeland Security that is operating in a safe and legal manner.’”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., acknowledged the awkwardness of the situation at a Jan. 13 press conference, and floated the unorthodox idea of a clean continuing resolution to extend current funding levels for DHS.
“Homeland is obviously the hardest [bill to pass] and it’s possible that if we can’t get an agreement that there could be some sort of a CR that funds some of these bills into the next year,” said Thune, who added that he hoped there could be some deal to pass all the bills.
There is an unusual element of this year’s funding talks, however.
The July budget reconciliation bill which Republicans passed without needing any Democrat votes provided $170 billion for immigration and border enforcement, relieving some of the stress for Republican appropriators.
Democrats “have never been supportive of” funding homeland security, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told reporters Monday. “We understood that very clearly, which is why we did so much being proactive with the ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill,’ with allowing the bill to have the funding to go enforce our laws.”