House Dems Rally Against DHS Funding Bill, But the Senate Is Where the Real Fight Happens -

Dems ‘Overwhelmingly’ Opposed

House Democrats are expected to vote against an upcoming appropriations bill funding the Department of Homeland Security because it doesn’t go far enough in restraining Immigration and Customs Enforcement after an agent killed a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis this month.

Congressional appropriators released a big bipartisan package on Tuesday that would fund the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security ahead of Congress’ deadline to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year, at the end of January. The House is expected to vote on the funding package Thursday, and Republican leadership has reportedly agreed to allow a separate vote on the DHS section of the bill so Democrats can express their dismay. But absent GOP opposition, the legislation is still expected to pass the House if the Republican conference doesn’t have absentee issues.

While House Democratic leadership has come out saying it’ll vote against the DHS portion of the package — and a sweeping chunk of the House Democratic caucus is expected to do the same, including many Democratic appropriators in the House — those who plan to support the measure claim that the stuff the bill does to curtail ICE is better than nothing. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat on the House Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, has suggested voting for the bill is better than giving DHS a “blank check” in the form of a continuing resolution that Republicans would likely try to push through.

The details of the bill, per NBC News:

The package would keep ICE funding essentially flat at $10 billion for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, even as the agency received $75 billion of additional money for detention and enforcement from Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democratic appropriator, acknowledged that the package did not include broad reforms to rein in ICE in a statement from her office announcing the bill. But she endorsed the package, saying it would prevent a partial shutdown and arguing that it did include some Democratic priorities.

Those supposed priorities include funding to force ICE agents to wear body cams and language that “encourages” DHS to create a new uniform policy that would “ensure that law enforcement officers are clearly identifiable as Federal law enforcement.” It also includes some cuts to Trump’s sweeping deportation budget: it “would also cut funding for ICE enforcement and removal operations by $115 million and reduce the number of ICE detention beds by 5,500.”

What really matters is how Senate Democrats respond once the legislation is brought up for a vote in the upper chamber, as Republicans will need support from at least seven Democrats to pass the bill. The Senate does not return until next week, so how exactly individual senators and Democratic leadership in the upper chamber plans to approach the appropriations bill will be clearer then.

But a few Senate Democrats have spoken out against the DHS portion of the bill. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) has been calling for Democrats to oppose funding for DHS since at least last week. After the bill text was released Tuesday, he issued a statement saying it “puts no meaningful constraints on the growing lawlessness of ICE, and increases funding for detention over the last Appropriations bill passed in 2024.”

Over the weekend some other Senate Democrats followed his lead, with Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) telling CNN Sunday that Democrats should withhold their votes on DHS funding even if it means shutting down that portion of the government.

“We cannot vote for anything that actually adds more money and doesn’t constrain ICE,” he said. “I can’t speak for everybody else, but if I have to shut down the portion of ICE — just to be clear, we’re not shutting down the rest of the government — the portion of ICE that is causing this kind of harm, racially profiling people, terrorizing our cities, I know the implications of that. I know the political implications potentially of that.

“But we cannot keep funding this type of goon squads that are just spreading throughout the whole country just to enforce some weird policy position that Stephen Miller has, where he thinks that we have to punish blue cities,” he continued.

Those who support the legislation in the Senate, like top Democratic appropriator Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), are selling it as a way to claw back some of the funding cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency last year. Murray also suggested protesting the DHS portion of the bill is useless.

“ICE must be reined in, and unfortunately, neither a (continuing resolution) nor a shutdown would do anything to restrain it, because, thanks to Republicans, ICE is now sitting on a massive slush fund it can tap whether or not we pass a funding bill,” Murray told NBC. “The suggestion that a shutdown in this moment might curb the lawlessness of this administration is not rooted in reality.”

ICE Descends on Maine

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed reports that ICE agents are conducting a large scale immigration enforcement operation in Maine this week. They confirmed reports in a press release announcing its new “Operation Catch of the Day” in Maine. Several mayors have criticized the uptick in arrests and, according to local reports, some school districts have locked down their schools in order to protect students from ICE’s presence.

Bessent Unconcerned!

“Denmark’s investment in U.S. Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.”

“That is less than $100 million. They’ve been selling Treasurys for years, I’m not concerned at all,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos Wednesday when asked about European investors pulling money out of U.S. Treasurys, a move many have made in response to Trump’s plans to impose 10 percent tariffs on a handful of European countries as he tries to take over Greenland.

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