WASHINGTON — Congress is struggling to make progress in negotiations to avoid a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security next week, leaving the two parties squabbling as the House and the Senate left town for a long weekend.
DHS funding expires Feb. 13, and the talks are stuck in neutral.
Democrats insisted on a short leash for the department in the recent government funding package as they make demands to rein in ICE and U.S. Border Patrol after federal agents killed two American citizens in Minneapolis.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both New York Democrats, issued a list of 10 demands Wednesday evening. They include requiring immigration agents to conduct operations unmasked; show identification; obtain judicial warrants for various operations, which ICE does not require to forcibly enter homes; and steer clear of sensitive locations like schools and churches.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., swiftly dismissed the Democratic proposal.
“It’s totally unrealistic. Their demand list went from three items to 10 items. It just shows you they’re not, they’re not serious yet,” Thune told reporters, warning that some policies making agents identify themselves would just “set them up to get doxxed.”
“There’s just a bunch of stuff in there that’s a nonstarter, and they know it,” he added. “There are a few things that, actually, there’s probably some room to maneuver on there, to negotiate on. But a lot of that stuff, obviously, just wasn’t serious.”
Thune did not say which proposals allowed room for negotiation. Earlier this week, he said the two-week window Democrats sought to reach a deal on DHS changes was “an impossibility.”
If Congress misses the deadline, DHS will shut down. Operations that the Trump administration deems essential would continue, like the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard, but employees would go without pay. ICE, meanwhile, was given $75 billion under President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill," which would be unaffected by a shutdown.
Another complication is that Republicans have demands of their own, most notably cutting off funds for “sanctuary cities,” which refuse to turn in undocumented immigrants to federal authorities.
“We’re not going to do anything that kneecaps ICE’s ability to do their jobs and enforce the laws that both Republicans and Democrats have voted on and presidents of both parties have enforced,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo. “If you want to have a real conversation, to me, it starts with ending sanctuary cities.”
Democrats firmly oppose that idea, saying cities are safer if residents can report crimes without fear of deportation.
“Obviously, we’re having trouble figuring out the path forward,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing DHS, told reporters.
Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., the chair of that panel, said it may be above her pay grade.
“With a week gone by, it looks like that it needs to go ahead and head to the White House now,” Britt said.
Others agreed that Trump needs to get involved to negotiate a solution with only eight days until DHS funding expires.
“I think that that’s going to help us get this resolved,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
At times, the Senate appeared to turn into a real-life Spider-Man meme, with each senator pointing at someone else on the question of whose responsibility it is to act next.
“I think it’s a little strange that Thune does not want to negotiate,” Murphy said. “He’s probably right that the White House needs to be involved.”
Said Schumer: “Nothing will get done until we know what the Republicans are for, OK? They have to get their act together.”
He added, however, that “our appropriations committees are talking” about the matter, suggesting that staff-level discussions are taking place.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., even suggested that House Republicans might try to attach the SAVE Act, a Trump-backed bill to require proof of citizenship to vote, to a DHS funding bill. That would all but ensure it fails in the Senate because of strong opposition from Democrats who argue that it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote and that the bill would disenfranchise citizens.
“We are going to be fighting for the SAVE Act. This is a big priority for not just House Republicans, but for the American people, and we will continue to attach this to legislation and send it over," Johnson said.
Some lawmakers have already begun talking about another stopgap measure to push the DHS deadline to March.
Jeffries said House Democrats would not vote for another stopgap bill to give negotiators more time to hammer out a deal. Republicans have just a one-vote margin for defection in the House to pass legislation on their own.
Meanwhile, DHS is taking steps to address some of the reforms Democrats demand, like requiring agents to wear body cameras in Minneapolis. But Democrats — even moderates — demand that those changes be codified into law, so they cannot be undone, in exchange for their votes to fund the agency.
“These demands are demands, not requests, not proposals. In my view, they are the minimum that ought to be required of the Department of Homeland Security,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Thursday. “Shutting down the Department of Homeland Security is minor compared to losing our freedoms.”
