Connecticut’s congressional delegation joined most House Democrats on Thursday in opposing a bill that funds the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, citing ongoing concerns over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and the lack of significant reforms attached to the bill to rein it in.
Still, the DHS funding bill narrowly cleared the Republican-led House as Congress seeks to wrap up its work to fund the rest of the federal government before the Jan. 30 deadline. And more lawmakers in both parties, including from Connecticut, voted to approve full-year funding for the remaining three government agencies in a subsequent vote.
The House took separate votes on the DHS bill, which includes funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and another package that consolidates funding for the final three government agencies — Labor, Health and Human Services and Education; Defense, and Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.
Congress must pass 12 appropriations bills to fund the federal government for fiscal year 2026. The House had already passed eight of the 12 bills, and after the Thursday afternoon votes, it completed its work a week before the deadline.
Now that both bills separately passed, the House will combine the DHS funding measure with a group of other funding bills and send it over to the Senate. That sets up a high-stakes fight in the Senate next week to fund the remainder of government. Because of the clash over resources for ICE, that puts some funding at risk and raises the possibility of a partial shutdown.
“The Department of Homeland Security should not receive one more cent of government funding until we see accountability for the death of Renee Good and the other atrocities being visited on our communities,” U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, said in a statement. “If my Republican colleagues were genuinely interested in furthering legal and humane immigration efforts, they would have supported meaningful reforms that ensure ICE officers do not threaten the safety or civil liberties of Americans. Instead, we’re voting on a bill that enables an indefensible status quo.”
Democrats sought accountability for ICE through the congressional appropriations process. Members of the state’s delegation wanted various reforms including funding for body cameras, reducing the number of detention beds, banning masks or face coverings for agents and requiring arrest warrants.
The compromise legislation released earlier this week included some of those reforms sought by Democrats, but Connecticut’s appropriators who played a role in negotiations acknowledged the bill fell short of their party’s broader demands — and the political reality of whether they could support such legislation.
Still, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, who serves as ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, said it took “steps in the right direction.” She also cautioned that DHS operating on another short-term funding bill would give wider discretion to Trump officials on how to use the money compared to a full-year appropriations bill that would direct how the funding can be used.
“The bill takes several steps in the right direction, such as cutting ICE enforcement and removal operations and reducing the number of detention beds, but it does not include broader reforms Democrats proposed,” DeLauro said in a statement on Tuesday.
“I understand that many of my Democratic colleagues may be dissatisfied with any bill that funds ICE,” she continued. “I share their frustration with the out-of-control agency. I encourage my colleagues to review the bill and determine what is best for their constituents and communities.”
It was unclear at the time how DeLauro would cast her vote on the bill. But as she managed floor debate, a couple of hours before Thursday’s vote, DeLauro explained why she wouldn’t be able to support legislation she played a role in negotiating.
In an emotional speech from the House floor, DeLauro said she’s become more fearful for two grandsons who are adopted but are U.S. citizens. She recounted telling one of them, who is Guatemalan, to carry around his passport in Los Angeles “because it scares me that because of his brown skin he can be pulled aside and he can be detained and he can be deported, and he’s a United States citizen.”
“I was hopeful as a ranking member of Appropriations … to get what we need to get done. We were on a good track, but we have to face the circumstances, we have to deal with the environment, we have to deal with what’s happened in this country. And we cannot turn a blind eye,” DeLauro said Thursday from the floor of the House.
“This is a moment and a vote that says you have to determine what you believe is the right thing to do,” she continued. “I’ve made that decision and the right thing for me to do is vote no on this bill.”
She noted that she doesn’t support abolishing the enforcement agency, like some of her colleagues do, but concluded by saying ICE needs reforms.
A growing number of Democrats didn’t want to see any new funding for ICE given the additional $75 billion allocated over four years in Republicans’ “big beautiful bill” for expanding the agency’s detention capacity and hiring more officers.
The funding bills now head to the Senate, where Democratic votes are needed to advance most legislation. Lawmakers must reach a 60-vote threshold, meaning Republicans will need at least seven Democrats to move it toward final passage.
Congress is trying to avoid another shutdown after a record-long one last fall over health care demands. That one lasted for 43 days and affected all part of the federal government, including an unprecedented temporary hold on SNAP benefits.
If there’s another funding lapse at the end of the month, it would affect a smaller portion of the government, since many agencies will be funded. But the remaining agencies that need new full-year funding cover a large part of the government. And outside of ICE, the Department of Homeland Security also oversees TSA, FEMA and the U.S. Coast Guard.
But U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said he can’t get support funding for DHS without reforms — and the bill coming before Congress falls short of that threshold. Some of those demands that didn’t make it into the final product included preventing U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents from being moved off the border and into the interior, requiring warrants for certain arrests and protocol around mandatory training.
He was strongly opposed to the bill when it was released on Tuesday. And his trip this week to south Texas to learn more about ICE’s enforcement and detainments were “more evidence of how critical this moment is and how DHS does not deserve to be funded without reforms.”
“We shouldn’t let Republicans bully us again into funding a lawless administration,” Murphy said in a Thursday interview. “I just don’t think we will be perceived as credible if we vote to fund DHS’ illegality and abuse for the rest of the year while talking like it’s a moral and legal crisis.”
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.
