House Republicans barely passed a funding package on Tuesday, voting after more than a day of wrangling to approve five full-year funding bills plus a two-week continuing resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Senate Democrats last month had demanded that, in exchange for their votes on funding packages, reforms and constraints be placed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. That prompted a standoff over the DHS funds and a short-lived partial government shutdown, which is now over.
But for how long?
Members of Congress now have a behemoth task ahead of them: rein in ICE in the wake of its recent violence against protesters and observers, negotiate and pass reforms that Democrats and at least some Republicans will support — and the Trump White House sign into law — in an incredibly short period of time.
The current continuing resolution covering DHS will expire on Feb. 13 — now less than 10 days away.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) hosted a joint press conference Wednesday morning to lay out congressional Democrats’ priorities around ICE reform. Those priorities include: mandating body cameras, visible identification and no masks for ICE agents, as well as requiring judicial warrants so agents can’t just enter homes or cars without permission, as DHS currently asserts they can.
Democrats also said they would be pushing for mandates that guarantee American citizens are not detained or deported, and legislation that gives them the ability to sue if their rights are trampled.
A more official written proposal that Democrats will send to the Republican negotiators is expected in the next 24 hours, according to the Senate Minority Leader.
“We’re on the same page,” Schumer said of House and Senate Democratic leaderships’ top priorities.
Democrats are largely framing their demands around the idea that the reforms they are pushing for are regular practices within the majority of state and local law enforcement departments around the country.
“Let’s be very clear about these reforms, there is nothing in these reforms that requires ICE to do anything different than your local and state police departments are required to do,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told TPM last week.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) also pressed on the same idea Wednesday.
“This is being framed, I think, incorrectly, as some sort of immigration negotiation. It’s not,” Schatz (D-HI) told reporters on his way up to the Senate floor. “We just want ICE to not be the only exception among law enforcement organizations … that they don’t need warrants, that they don’t need to identify themselves, that they don’t have to be trained, that they don’t have to be professional and follow proper procedure, that if someone is involved in an officer-involved shooting … there’s no investigation, that they smear the victim.”
“None of those things are normal in the armed services,” he continued. “None of those things are normal in federal, state or county law enforcement. So all we’re asking is for ICE to be treated like every other law enforcement organization in the United States of America.”
Though most congressional Democrats seem onboard with the general ideas laid out by leadership as necessary constraints to place on ICE, the specifics will still have to be committed to legislation. After that, lawmakers will still have to negotiate with congressional Republicans and the Trump White House — who have already said they will oppose some of the most basic and easy-to-implement demands Democrats have floated.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has already pushed back on the Democratic demands to bar ICE agents from wearing masks. The Speaker repeatedly said he supports ICE agents wearing masks, claiming they “are being doxxed and targeted” and they need the masks “to protect their own identities and protect their own families.”
Johnson has also expressed disinterest in the push for judicial warrant requirements to detain undocumented immigrants.
The Speaker and some congressional Republicans are also trying to take advantage of the opportunity to perpetuate President Trump’s ongoing assault on Democratic-run cities. They are pushing for Congress to crack down on sanctuary cities, blaming officials who enact sanctuary policies for ICE’s practices and demanding they cooperate with federal law enforcement to detain and deport undocumented immigrants.
“Mike Johnson has articulated unreasonable positions,” Jeffries said on Wednesday in response to Johnson’s remarks. “He is actually supporting the notion that masks and lawless ICE agents should be deployed in communities throughout America.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) also pushed back on Johnson’s objections.
“The bottom line is we need new reforms. We need to rein in this lawless operation,” Van Hollen said on Wednesday. “Based on things I heard the Speaker say it appears they’re not serious about meaningful reform. But we will see where this goes.”
Though the timeline is short, Democrats hold significant leverage in the negotiations. The DHS CR Congress passed will run out in less than two weeks. Both chambers will have to vote on a new CR in order to avoid a DHS wide shutdown — which would include a funding lapse not just for ICE and CBP but for departments like TSA, FEMA and the Coast Guard. Muddying the dynamics, ICE and CBP have a separate pool of funding they can draw on that was allocated by 2025’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Democrats are making it clear they will not vote for another DHS CR unless Republicans are engaging with them seriously on meaningful ICE reforms.
“If Republicans refuse to make the changes the American people are demanding they are forcing a Republican shutdown of DHS,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who also attended the Democratic leaderships’ press conference on Wednesday, told reporters.
Van Hollen, a member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, emphasized that if Republicans and the White House are serious about making changes to ICE practices “we should codify it … one thing we’ve learned is you can’t trust a word these guys say.”
Though shutting down DHS is an option, Democrats have said they recognize that option would hurt departments within DHS that are not ICE.
“If they are not willing to engage in meaningful reform at least we should break out other parts of DHS for separate votes … Coast Guard, TSA,” Van Hollen told TPM.
Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) — who was assigned as one of the lead negotiators for Senate Republicans as the chair of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee — has also expressed she hopes the current DHS CR won’t be the last one.
“We lost all weekend and both days this week [on the minibus passage], so we haven’t had time to pivot to the next thing. So we need a little more time. So I’m hopeful that they see the great effort that we’ve made … and we’ll have another CR,” Britt told reporters when asked about the timing of the negotiations.
This is absolutely the correct framing, and it should be shouted from the rooftops, over and over.
Perfect.
I’d add the thrust of these reforms is to call an end to actions by ICE and CBP that violate core constitutional protections. Not to get all misty eyed but every time I read about how these Maga droogs operate, my mind jumps back to colonists’ fury about Writs of Assistance and the background to the 4th Amendment.