Lawmakers have just nine days to negotiate Department of Homeland Security reforms or risk a department-wide funding lapse. Talks are tense, they are nowhere close to a deal and it doesn’t seem right now that they can achieve one.
Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, alongside a group of senior Democrats and appropriators, held a press conference Wednesday to make clear they won’t extend DHS funding without major reforms to its immigration enforcement arms.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement “is completely and totally out of control. Immigration enforcement should be just, it should be fair, and it should be humane,” Jeffries said. “That is not what’s taking place right now.”
Democrats plan to reveal legislation on Thursday. Their demands include ending roving patrols, tightening rules for warrants, changing the code of conduct and use-of-force guidelines for officers, no detaining or deporting of U.S. citizens and mandating officers wear body cameras and identification. Jeffries called requiring immigration agents to take off masks that cover their faces “a hard red line in the sand” on Tuesday.
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Everything but the body cameras, which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said will be instituted nationwide, may be difficult for Republican leaders to swallow.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said earlier Wednesday morning he does not believe that Jeffries is approaching negotiations in good faith: “Not on this, no. I mean, he’s not.”
“I think he, and, for that matter, Leader Schumer, both are afraid of their shadows, and they’re getting a lot of blowback and pressure from their left,” Thune continued. “I don’t think he wants to make a deal at all. I think he wants the issue.”
The House and Senate approved funding for most of the government until the end of this fiscal year but passed only a two-week continuing resolution for DHS after Democrats demanded reform in the wake of two killings of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents in Minnesota.
The sprawling department — which funds not only ICE and Customs and Border Protection, but also the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency — will hit a funding cliff on Feb. 13.
Thune said he’s hoping for a sit-down meeting with Democrats soon, and he has encouraged a meeting with the White House, but Republicans are still waiting for Democrats to choose who will be leading their DHS talks and to send an offer on the changes they want to DHS.
“It’s an awfully short time frame,” Thune told reporters. “And the sides seem to be pretty far apart at the moment.”
Thune said that Sen. Katie Britt, chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, will lead talks for Republicans. In the House, Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Tuesday that talks have been ongoing for a few days, but a deal is “obviously” not done.
“Mainly, the president’s been leading the negotiations,” Scalise said.
Jeffries said Tuesday that meeting with the president “at some point” is “a possibility.”
Democrats first advertised a list of demands they want for DHS last week.
While Republicans have already rejected some of these demands, conditions have changed since Democrats began floating them. On Wednesday morning, border czar Tom Homan announced 700 federal immigration agents will be leaving Minneapolis, although he said about 2,000 would remain.
Republicans have insisted they want a ban on “sanctuary” policies — which limit work between local police and ICE — to be part of the conversation, too. And House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Tuesday that he’s ruling out any requests from Democrats for amnesty programs.
“These are good things,” Johnson said of some potential changes to DHS. “The roving patrols will be modified. There are a lot of things that I think were thoughtful suggestions that have already been implemented by Mr. Homan and others that are in charge of all this, and so I think we can get to an agreement.”
If Democrats choose to hold up funding for DHS any further, Johnson added, they’ll be negatively affecting the other agencies under the DHS umbrella, since ICE and CBP “have enough money to go the next few years” within the reconciliation bill.
“We did front-load the funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CBP in the Big Beautiful Bill, so they have enough money to go the next few years,” he said. “So what they will be tying up if the Democrats choose to close the government is these various essential services for everything else.”
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole told reporters Monday night that “it’s more likely that we’ll probably have another short-term extension” for DHS, and in the negotiations to come, Democrats have “some” leverage, but not “as much leverage as they think.”
Thune has said the original two-week CR for DHS “makes absolutely no sense.” While Jeffries has said he will not support another temporary funding patch for the department after the funding deadline hits, Thune said he would be open to it — conditionally.
“I’m open to that if it looks like there’s actually progress. If there isn’t, I mean, it may be the best way to deal with this particular appropriations bill is to do a year-long CR,” Thune said.
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