Democrats Torn Over Proposals To Rein In ICE With Funding Bill
WASHINGTON – Top Senate Democrats say they did as much as they could to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency leading President Donald Trump’s unprecedented and often violent crackdown on immigrants across the country. But what they negotiated is unlikely to be enough for the party’s base and for many of their colleagues.
Senate Democrats this week touted new restraints on ICE they fought to include in a bipartisan bill funding the Department of Homeland Security, which is due to run out of funding on Jan. 30. The legislation includes $10 billion for ICE and $18 billion for Customs and Border Protection, which is aiding ICE’s sweeping raids of immigrants in Minnesota and other states. It would provide $20 million for new body-worn cameras for ICE and CBP officers, require de-escalation training for ICE and CBP agents and remind officers of Americans’ right to record any interactions they have with them. It would also establish oversight and transparency of the agency’s massive budget.
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Democratic senators who are supportive of the bill argue it’s the least bad option because the alternatives would result in ICE continuing to operate with no restraints whatsoever, but House Democrats seem likely to vote against it en masse and advocates argue it will do little to slow down an agency the administration hopes to make untouchable.
“This budget doesn’t seem to have any new meaningful constraints on ICE’s illegal behavior,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a Senate appropriations committee member, while touring detention facilities in Texas on Tuesday, adding in a video posted online that the bill would “do nothing meaningful to change the reality of ICE’s campaign of brutality.”
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If Congress passes a short-term continuing resolution instead, Democrats couldn’t put in place any new guardrails because a CR just keeps the status quo. And if Democrats refuse to fund the agency, and it shuts down at the end of the month, ICE would continue to run thanks to a separate pot of funding that Republicans passed unilaterally in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill last year.
“There is much more we must do to rein in DHS, which I will continue to press for. But the hard truth is that Democrats must win political power to enact the kind of accountability we need,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee who helped negotiate the DHS budget, advised her party in a statement this week.
Shutting down DHS would also mean other agencies within it, including FEMA and the TSA, would stop working even as ICE barrels ahead.
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Passing the bill in the Senate will require 60 votes after the chamber returns from a recess next week, and it’s likely to pick up some Democratic support.
“I think Patty Murray did a very good job under the circumstances of trying to get some constraints on ICE,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told HuffPost in a press call on Wednesday. “She had three bad choices, and I think she made the right one, and did better than many people expected.”
House Democrats, meanwhile, are coming out against the bill in droves as anger over the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minnesota by an ICE agent continues to reverberate across the country. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) announced he would oppose it during a closed-door meeting with his caucus on Wednesday, according to a person in the room, because it failed to constrain ICE’s tactics.
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“Some of the things that we believe are appropriate in this instance are demanding be part of any final bill, are a warrant requirement. That’s common sense,” Jeffries said Wednesday during an interview with MSNOW’s “Morning Joe.” “ICE should not be able to storm houses of worship, hospitals and schools. That’s common sense that relates to protocols that exist for every other law enforcement agency in the country. ICE should have a use-of-force standard. None currently exists.”
None of the demands Democrats sought to include were accepted by Republicans in the bipartisan funding bill, leading advocates to argue that the only option is to refuse to fund DHS.
“What we see here is Congress washing its hands and power to actually put constraints on an agency that is hurting our communities,” Heidi Altman, the vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, told HuffPost. “We’re plunging toward authoritarianism and the DHS budget is allowing it.”
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Trump and Republican lawmakers have generally defended Trump’s immigration crackdown even as over 3,000 ICE agents have been deployed to Minnesota’s Twin Cities, detaining immigrants and U.S. citizens alike.
During a press briefing on Tuesday, Trump acknowledged that ICE can “make mistakes sometimes” and said it’s “so sad” that the father of Good was a big Trump supporter.
“ICE is gonna be too rough with somebody or — you know, they’re dealing with rough people,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They’re gonna make a mistake sometimes. It can happen. We feel terrible. I felt horribly when I was told that the young woman had the tragedy. But when I learned her father is a ― I hope he still is, but I don’t know ― was a tremendous Trump fan. He was all for Trump. Loved Trump. It’s terrible. It’s so sad. It just happens.”
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Arthur Delaney contributed reporting.
