ICE Debate Won’t Tank Homeland Funding Bill, Republicans Say

Lawmakers are moving another package of annual spending bills to the House floor, but a fight over immigration enforcement reform means the annual appropriations legislation for the Department of Homeland Security will have to move separately.

A small bloc of House Democrats are expected to vote to pass a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security. The majority of the caucus opposes the measure because members do not believe the bill makes the kind of reforms to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement they want to see following what they’ve decried as overly aggressive tactics from the agency.

GOP Majority Whip Tom Emmer told NOTUS he is confident the homeland security bill can pass. House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said the prospects of the bill passing are “good.”

“I think it’ll be close,” Cole told NOTUS, adding he expects help from a few Democrats.

Democrats had ramped up calls to reform ICE and cut its funding after an agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, derailing negotiations lawmakers said were on track for a bipartisan Homeland Security appropriations bill. Some Democrats saw a narrow window to force Republicans to add more oversight and accountability provisions for ICE, but this week, Democrats conceded they couldn’t achieve that.

“There’s some good things that have to do with the Coast Guard, with TSA, with FEMA and so forth. But, no. They rejected where we want to go on reining in ICE,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top House Democrat on the spending panel, said Tuesday night.

“We didn’t get what we fought for,” she added.

Rep. Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a news conference Wednesday that he “can appreciate” additions to the bill’s language that Democrats negotiated, and that a continuing resolution would give “more flexibility” to the agency, but the consensus he’s heard among Democrats was that changes to ICE in the bill aren’t sufficient.

Other House Democrats touted small changes they support in the Homeland bill. Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, the top Democrat on the House’s Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, mentioned a provision that citizens can videotape ICE operations as long as they do not interfere. DeLauro pointed Wednesday to “a minor, small deduction in overall” ICE funding in the bill and has insisted passing the bill would prevent executive overreach that could come with a continuing resolution or “CR.”

Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, argued in a statement that Democrats extracted concessions from Republicans, including cutting ICE and Customs and Border Patrol funding and securing “important, although still insufficient, new constraints on DHS. The bill rejects all Republican poison pill riders and significantly reduces Secretary Noem’s ability to move around funding as she sees fit under a CR.”

“There is much more we must do to rein in DHS, which I will continue to press for,” Murray added. “But the hard truth is that Democrats must win political power to enact the kind of accountability we need. I will keep fighting to bring sanity, decency, and due process to immigration enforcement in America.”

Aguilar said most Democrats believe the measures fell far short. All top House Democratic leaders have announced they would vote no.

“In the last 24 hours, we’ve heard our members speak loudly that ICE isn’t doing enough,” Aguilar said. “These reforms aren’t enough. Their lawlessness has to stop, and they are only doing this because they can. They’re only doing this because the president of the United States wants to terrorize communities.”

The Homeland Security bill now needs a separate vote from the minibus of the other final three appropriations bills. That package includes the bill funding the Labor and Health and Human Services departments, the Defense Department bill and legislation funding both the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Cole told reporters the separate vote was negotiated “to help the Democrats” and the chances of the bill passing.

Votes on the bill are expected Thursday, and Democrats came out of a Wednesday morning conference meeting saying they had been encouraged to vote with their conscience and in the best interest of their district. Democratic leadership is not formally whipping against the bill despite plans to vote against it, a person familiar told NOTUS.

Speaker Mike Johnson said in a news conference Wednesday that he expects the Homeland Security bill to pass and that lawmakers “can’t do a CR” for DHS.

“Think of what will happen in this golden year, in our 250th anniversary,” Johnson said. “We’ve talked about the Olympics in Los Angeles. You’ll have the FIFA World Cup events in 11 cities across America. You’ll have an untold number of July 4th Independence Day and independence season events around the country. We’ll have lots of events here in the capital. Every single American needs Homeland Security fully funded for the year ahead of us.

A person familiar with the Democrats’ whip count told NOTUS Wednesday that at least 10 Democrats plan to vote for the bill, though members of Democratic leadership like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have come out against the bill. Cuellar said he plans to vote yes for the bill and made a presentation for it in the caucus meeting.

“I’m a plus 10 Trump district. I’ve got my calculations,” Cuellar said.

Another provision in the bill adds $20 million for “the procurement, deployment, and operations of body worn cameras for agents and officers performing enforcement activities,” which is something Democrats wanted, Cole said.

“This is a negotiated product, and they got some things in there that they wanted — body cams, which I think is good for everybody. Got some additional training money in there,” Cole said Tuesday.

Aguilar didn’t seem to have confidence that these provisions mean ICE agents will abide by them.

“There’s no sense in buying more body cameras if you’re not going to turn the body cameras on, if you’re not going to train people on how to use body cameras,” Aguilar said. “We still fundamentally have concerns when the administration is compressing roughly six months of training for future ICE employees into six weeks. That’s going to lead to bad outcomes.”

He also said “common sense reforms like prohibitions against detaining U.S. citizens were roundly rejected” by Republicans, something other Democrats echoed. Cuellar said there were “a lot more, stronger provisions,” including on training, judicial warrants and arresting U.S. citizens that were rejected.

“The reality is, ‘til we take over the House, Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House, and they have a little bit more leverage than we do, but that would change in November,” Cuellar said.