Hopes for a quick resolution to the Homeland Security spending bill dimmed Thursday as negotiations devolved into a blame game among Republicans and Democrats over who should be talking to whom.
Democrats submitted a list of demands for how to rein in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s enforcement efforts, but U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, who is the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, said Democrats have gotten mixed signals on whom to talk to and that Republicans need to take the lead, given they control Congress.
He said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Democrats to work with the White House again. Others are saying it should be U.S. Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, Murphy’s Republican counterpart on the DHS subcommittee.
For her part, Britt told reporters Thursday she’s tried to meet with Democrats, like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., but couldn’t reach him.
“Sen. Britt has reached out multiple times now to Sen. Schumer, or whomever he wants to negotiate on his behalf, and it’s been crickets over there,” Thune told reporters on Thursday. “The White House has tried, too.”
There’s been slow movement amid the finger pointing, but Democrats expect to put out legislative text on their demands later Thursday while they wait for Republicans’ counteroffer. Congress has a short window to get a deal done before short-term DHS funding runs out after Feb. 13.
Murphy rejected the characterization that Democrats have been unwilling to sit down. He said early Thursday afternoon he hasn’t spoken to Britt, the GOP chairwoman of the DHS appropriations subcommittee, in the past 24 hours. But the Connecticut senator said their staffs have been in contact.
“[Republicans] created a very strange dynamic. We waited for days for them to convene a process. They didn’t, so we sent them a proposal. Now they’re telling us to talk to an individual senator, but also to talk to the White House,” Murphy said on his way to Senate votes on Thursday.
“The staffs are talking, and I’m sure we’ll continue to have member-level conversations. I’ve talked to Katie [Britt] about what we need, but it seems like they don’t know who they want us to talk to right now. They tell us to talk to the White House. They tell us to talk to Britt,” Murphy said.
Schumer confirmed late Thursday afternoon that discussions are happening at the staff level. And he said Democrats will submit legislative language “as early as this afternoon.”
“The Appropriations Committee is the place where there are negotiations going on, and again, nothing will get done until we know what the Republicans are for,” Schumer told reporters. “At the moment, it’s the appropriations committees talking to each other. But you’ve had other people on the Republican side saying different things.”
Murphy has an influential role on the DHS appropriations subcommittee, but said he expects top Democratic leaders to be more intimately involved in talks whenever they ramp up.
“This does seem to be a negotiation that’s better at the leadership level. I think it’s a little strange that Thune does not want to negotiate. He’s probably right that the White House needs to be involved. We don’t want to be in a circular negotiation that doesn’t go anywhere,” Murphy said.
Other Connecticut lawmakers had echoed the sentiment that they expect Democratic leadership to be at the forefront of negotiations. President Donald Trump ended up working with Senate Democrats on the agreement that funded most of the federal government while only funding DHS for two weeks to buy time on ICE reform talks.
Murphy and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the Connecticut Democrats who hold key roles on their respective Appropriations Committees, stood alongside Democratic leaders Wednesday as they laid out the party’s broader demands. By that night, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sent a 10-point proposal to Republicans to formally start negotiations.
Some of the demands include requiring officers to obtain a warrant from a judge to enter private property, preventing agents from conducting enforcement near sensitive locations like schools, religious institutions and polling places; ending racial profiling, expanding training for officers, ending limitations on members of Congress who want to visit ICE centers, requiring the use of body cameras, prohibiting databases of individuals participating in First Amendment activities, and identification for federal agents like banning face coverings and displaying ID numbers.
DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the proposal should be no surprise to Republicans given that many of the items mirror what appropriators sought during earlier talks on the Homeland Security funding bill.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel. We have been talking about a number of requirements that we have to in order to move forward on the DHS bill,” DeLauro told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “This is plain and simple, bread and butter, commonsense proposals.”
The two parties still appear fall apart on a compromise. Republicans poured cold water on many of these proposals, even before the list was released on Wednesday evening.
Days earlier, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has already said Republicans won’t get behind some of the main demands of Democrats, like arrest warrants and a ban on face coverings for federal agents.
“Democrats’ newest proposal is a ridiculous Christmas list of demands for the press. This is NOT negotiating in good faith, and it’s NOT what the American people want,” Britt posted on social media platform X shortly after Democrats unveiled their plan. “They continue to play politics to their radical base at the expense of the safety of Americans. DHS, FEMA, Secret Service, and the Coast Guard run out of money in 9 days. Democrats don’t seem to care one bit.”
But Murphy said Democrats are still waiting on Republicans’ own set of demands so negotiations can start in earnest. Some Republicans have indicated they want a crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities, something Democrats have said is a no go.
“All we know right now is what they’re not for. All they tell us is what they won’t do. They haven’t told us what they will do. And they haven’t told us clearly who to negotiate with, but they could solve that today,” Murphy said. “They could give us a proposal today. They could clarify who we’re supposed to be talking to, and we could get this done by next week.”
With the exception for DHS, Congress funded the rest of the federal government through the end of September. That took a more wide-ranging partial shutdown off the table. Homeland Security, however, was only funded for about two weeks through a short-term continuing resolution that kept agency funding flat.
If lawmakers can’t come to an agreement on ICE and Border Patrol reforms, DHS funding is likely to lapse late next week. They have until next Friday to agree to a deal or pass another continuing resolution. Without any funding fix, the Department of Homeland Security is expected to shut down — not just immigration enforcement agencies but other offices like FEMA, TSA and the U.S. Coast Guard.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he’s also pushing for other demands such as allowing individuals to sue federal agents and agencies over civil rights violations. He also wants to require an independent monitor at ICE. He said that job has typically been done by inspectors general of an agency but argued IGs could no longer be trusted because they are “now captives of this administration.”
At the beginning of Trump’s second term, he abruptly fired more than a dozen IGs.
“They are no longer independent watchdogs. They are lap dogs, so we need some kind of independent monitor,” Blumenthal said in an interview on Wednesday, prior to the release of Democrats’ demands. “That idea may not be in the mix right now. I’m going to be advocating for it.”
Even with a potential DHS shutdown, ICE would still have plenty of funding to draw from. The agency got a major boost of $75 billion over four years through Republicans’ “big beautiful bill.” DHS has at times claimed that certain ICE operations are exempt from appropriations laws because they are solely operating on those special funds. That’s an argument Democrats have categorically rejected, especially when it’s been used to prevent members of Congress from entering detention centers run by ICE.
But Democrats want any reforms they might secure to also apply to the funding approved through Republicans’ megabill.
Democrats like Murphy still feel optimistic about securing a deal by the Feb. 13 deadline and avoiding the need for another stopgap measure to keep DHS afloat.
But Republicans are already signaling they’ll move on another continuing resolution.
“I think we can get to a product, but they’ve got to stop drawing these public red lines. It’s not helpful when the speaker is not willing to talk about the commonsense reforms that Democrats are asking for,” Murphy said.
Democrats haven’t formally said whether they’d block another round of short-term funding for DHS, but they have signaled they’re resistant to it absent real reform.
“Unless these demands are met, and they are demands and not requests, I feel a moral obligation to vote against another DHS funding package,” Blumenthal said.
Outside of immigration enforcement, there are concerns about what a long-term lapse in funding for the Department of Homeland Security would mean for other agencies. And while TSA and members of the military like the Coast Guard are typically exempt from furloughs, they wouldn’t get paid until after a shutdown ends.
Blumenthal said he’d look for ways to ensure those in the Coast Guard get paid. There have been similar efforts floated during past shutdown threats. The rest of the military would get paid if DHS shuts down, unlike the Coast Guard, since most military branches fall under the Pentagon. The Defense Department secured full-year funding earlier this week.
Schumer said there’s talk among the Democratic caucus of finding ways “of how we continue TSA.”
DeLauro said she supports funding many of the operations that are part of DHS, like FEMA, the Coast Guard, TSA and the Secret Service, “separately” from ICE and Customs and Border Protection. But it’s unclear if there’s an appetite for once again splitting up additional funding bills.
“If Republicans are unwilling to reform ICE and CBP,” DeLauro said in a Thursday statement, “then they will be responsible for any disruptions and deferred paychecks.”
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.
