Democrats’ desire to rein in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has spilled into Congress’ appropriations process as the party weighs whether to stymie efforts to fund the U.S. Department of Homeland Security without some guardrails.
That has put two congressional appropriators from Connecticut — U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy — at the forefront. They are looking for a compromise DHS funding bill that could include some reforms to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which they’ve criticized in recent weeks.
Congress must pass 12 appropriations bills to fund the federal government and has made a big dent in that work ahead of its Jan. 30 deadline. But the bill to fund Homeland Security remains a major sticking point in the final weeks, and majority Republicans still need votes from key Democrats to get the job done.
The DHS funding bill was already one of the hardest to negotiate. But those challenges got much steeper after the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis by a federal agent. With renewed frustrations over ICE activity, more Democrats are threatening to withhold funding for the agency absent some reforms or restrictions.
That bill was initially slated to go into an earlier funding package that passed this week but was stripped out when the DHS measure faced headwinds. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., told reporters this week they decided to hold off on taking it up to “buy some time to continue to talk” about Homeland Security.
DeLauro, Murphy and others in charge of the appropriations process are continuing to negotiate DHS funding. DeLauro is the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, and Murphy serves as ranking member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that specifically deals with DHS funding.
Murphy, who has rallied the base around this issue, said he needs to see “some constraints on the level of lawlessness that’s happening” addressed in any funding bill.
“I know this bill better than any other [funding] bill. I’m trying to be as helpful as I can about ideas on how we can improve it,” Murphy said in a Wednesday interview outside the Senate chamber. “I want to support these appropriations bills, and there’s no question my bar has been a little bit higher than my colleagues’ when it comes to what I need to support the bills.”
The Congressional Progressive Caucus took an official position on DHS funding this week: “Oppose all funding for immigration enforcement in any appropriation bills until meaningful reforms are enacted to end militarized policing practices.”
But Democratic leaders haven’t given their blessing to a strategy on ICE funding. When pressed on Tuesday over whether Democrats will condition such funding, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY., didn’t engage, referring to it as “one of the major issues that the appropriators are confronting right now.”
Some Democrats don’t want to see any new funding, pointing to the additional $75 billion allocated over four years in Republicans’ “big beautiful bill” for expanding ICE’s detention capacity and hiring more officers. That pot of money was much larger than the agency’s past funding through the traditional appropriations process.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has pushed back against the idea of cutting funding for immigration enforcement.
“I think there’s a lot of Democrats playing games right now with national security and with law enforcement, and I think it’s dangerous,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday. “I don’t think we need to be cutting funding right now. I think the American people want the law to be enforced, and I think we need to let law enforcement do its job.”
Murphy and DeLauro both say they don’t want to see an increase in money for the enforcement agency and are considering policy riders in the funding bill that could bring some accountability to ICE. Some of those include funding for body cameras, reducing the number of detention beds and requiring agents to take off masks or face coverings, according to a source familiar with negotiations.
One House Republican involved in negotiations on DHS said his party is proposing that some of the funding go toward body cameras for ICE agents, according to Politico.
It’s unclear if that would be enough to win Democrats’ support or if Republicans would make other offers or concessions during DHS negotiations.
A stalemate over DHS funding would not only affect funding for ICE but also the many other agencies it oversees, including TSA, the U.S. Coast Guard and FEMA.
And if they can’t come to an agreement on full-year funding for DHS, Congress may need another short-term measure, known as a continuing resolution or a CR. Some lawmakers caution that a CR could give the Trump administration more latitude over the money compared to a full-year appropriations bill that would direct how the funding can be used.
“Negotiations are ongoing, but I am hopeful we can reach an agreement with congressional Republicans by the Jan. 30 deadline,” DeLauro said in a statement. “Walking away from negotiations only further empowers bad actors within the administration like [DHS Secretary] Kristi Noem and [White House deputy chief of staff for policy] Stephen Miller. Congress can assert itself through this bill and check the administration’s excess.”
“You should demand that we make sure that this appropriations process is used to make ICE comply with the law. And I see a lot of signs out there — not one additional dime for ICE in this budget,” Murphy said Tuesday night at an “ICE Out for Good” rally in Washington, D.C.
Back in the halls of Congress, Murphy acknowledged the challenges that lie ahead for the bill and negotiations.
“Obviously, we’re moving some [funding] bills. I don’t know that I feel optimistic yet about the DHS bill,” Murphy said Wednesday. “We’re not going to fix every terrible thing that’s happening in ICE in this bill. But we should use our power to try to get some provisions that force them to act lawfully, and certainly we can’t agree to an increase in enforcement dollars when they’re swimming in more money than they know what to do with.”
DeLauro has an even bigger task ahead of her on all of the remaining funding bills as one of the “Four Corners,” the four lawmakers that consist of the top Republican and Democrat on both the House and Senate appropriations committees.
When asked about specifics that could go into a funding bill, DeLauro wouldn’t detail the negotiations. She reiterated that she doesn’t support an increase in funding for ICE.
“We’re in the throes of trying to put that together. Let’s not preempt. Let’s see where we’re going,” DeLauro said in an interview during Tuesday votes just off the House floor. “I want to look at how we put this bill together, that makes sense and addresses the very serious issues that happened in Minneapolis.”
Government shutdown?
DeLauro feels optimistic about the funding process, given they’re more than halfway through passing the 12 full-year spending bills for fiscal year 2026.
“That’s eight of the 12 appropriations bills. I believe on track to pass all 12 bills by Jan. 30,” DeLauro said before Wednesday’s passage of another tranche of funding for the State and Treasury departments. “For me personally, I don’t want to turn over the power of the appropriations committee to any executive, Democrat or Republican. Or the second option is a shutdown, which, as we know, is the worst of all possible outcomes.”
Congressional Republicans similarly feel hopeful about moving the rest of the government funding bills and avoiding a partial government shutdown at the end of January, even with Homeland Security being a thorny issue. There’s little appetite in Congress for another shutdown after a record-long one last fall over a push to extend pandemic-era health care subsidies. Democrats ultimately didn’t get their demands.
“What happens with the other bills is still an open question, but I’m hopeful we can move as many of them across the floor of the House and the Senate and get it to the president’s desk under regular order. That remains to be seen, but Homeland’s obviously the hardest one,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Tuesday.
Aside from seeking to leverage the budget process, Connecticut Democrats are entertaining other ways of enacting some accountability — even some that are largely symbolic, given Democrats’ minimal leverage in Congress as the minority party.
U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, joined a growing number of House Democrats supporting impeachment efforts against DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. He’s so far the only member of Connecticut’s House delegation to sign on to the effort. As the majority party, Republicans have been able to block other impeachment attempts this session.
One of Larson’s Democratic primary opponents, former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, similarly called for Noem’s impeachment. He also said Congress should “condition support for the budget” on securing reforms like banning masks for agents and requiring arrest warrants. And he joined a growing wing of the party that’s called for abolishing and replacing the current structure of ICE.
“When a federal agency is going door to door asking Americans for their papers, profiling people based on their accents or looks, sending masked agents to schools and churches, and repeatedly using excessive force with zero accountability or oversight, it’s time to start over,” Bronin said in a statement on Thursday. “We will still need immigration enforcement, but we do not need and should not keep this agency.”
On the reemergence of calls to abolish ICE among some in the Democratic Party, Murphy isn’t quite going there.
“Of course you need a domestic enforcement mechanism for the immigration laws of this country. But the way in which ICE is operating today is inhumane and illegal,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
But with little recourse for Democrats in Congress, that has left the appropriations process as the only realistic path for reforming ICE.
“I’m open to hearing it. Congress has congressional oversight which is not happening and if they refuse to sit down at the table and talk to us,” U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5th District, said as she headed into a House vote on Tuesday. “But this can’t continue the way it’s going.”
The Connecticut Mirror/Connecticut Public Radio federal policy reporter position is made possible, in part, by funding from the Robert and Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation.
This story was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror.
