Senate Democrats sent their Republican counterparts draft legislation Sunday that would provide funding for the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year. DHS is currently operating on a short-term funding bill and faces the threat of a shutdown Friday night if Congress is unable to reach an agreement, in the form of either a full-year funding bill or a short-term continuing resolution that provides lawmakers with a few more weeks to come up with a viable plan.
In the wake of the Trump administration’s violent immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and other cities around the country, Democrats are demanding significant changes within DHS in return for their cooperation on a funding bill. Last week, Democrats released a 10-point list of demands for changes, including a requirement for the use of judicial warrants, a limitation on sites where immigration enforcement can occur, an end to racial profiling, and the standardization of uniforms worn by federal agents.
Hope for progress: Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday that negotiators are talking, leaving open the possibility that a deal can be made. “There’s a possibility something gets done here,” Thune told reporters. “There are discussions going on between the White House and Senate Democrats.”
Punchbowl News reported that the White House had sent a counteroffer on DHS reforms to Democrats late Monday afternoon, but senior lawmakers have yet to confirm the report.
Even with a possible counteroffer in play, the odds of reaching an agreement don’t look particularly good, especially since time is short and lawmakers are just getting back to Washington, with an off-week scheduled starting February 16.
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman said Sunday that he isn’t optimistic about making a deal in the next few days. “I absolutely would expect that it’s going to shut down,” Fetterman told Fox News. “We, the Democrats, we provided 10 kinds of basic things, and then the Republicans pushed back quickly saying that’s a Christmas wish list, and that they’re nonstarters. I truly don’t know what specifically are the Democrats’ red lines that it has to be, certainly not going to get all 10.”
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said Monday that a shutdown seems likely. “Republicans need to stop telling us what they’re against and talk to us about what they can vote for,” he said, per CNN. “They’ve wasted a week while we’ve been diligently trying to move the negotiations and the talks forward, but you know, I wish Republicans were more serious about getting a budget. We’re certainly, you know, on the verge of having the department shut down.”
Murphy also noted that a shutdown would likely impinge upon ICE, even though the agency was given billions of dollars in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that became law last summer. “It’s not a simple on/off switch ... There are restrictions on BBB dollars. There’s restrictions on appropriations dollars. Obviously, you know, the money in the appropriations bill is not peanuts. It’s $10 billion for ICE,” he said. “So, yeah, obviously, ICE has a lot of money right now, but it’s not a simple thing for them to just decide to move all of their operations from one account to the other.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said he saw no viable path for a deal right now and would be fine with a continuing resolution. “I don’t see how we get there,” he said. “They want to reform ICE, I want to get rid of sanctuary cities.”
The bottom line: A short-term funding bill for DHS is probably the best-case scenario to avoid a shutdown at this point, but there are signs that Democrats may reject that path.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday that he wants to see “dramatic changes” within DHS. “In our view, the ball is in the court right now of the Republicans,” he told CNN. “Either they’re going to agree to dramatically reform the way in which ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies are conducting themselves so that they’re behaving like every other law enforcement agency in the country, or they’re making the explicit decision to shut down the Coast Guard, shut down FEMA, and shut down TSA, and that would be very unfortunate.”