Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is running low on cash. Technically, so are most of her fellow Cabinet members and agency heads. The short-term funding bill keeping the government open is due to expire at the end of the month. But it’s the DHS that’s sitting under the harshest spotlight as lawmakers decide whether to add more strings to funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
As things stand, roughly three months into the current fiscal year, Congress is slowly working to pass the 12 annual bills to fund the federal government. Two more passed the House on Wednesday, bringing the grand total to eight that have made it through at least one chamber. But the four still being negotiated are the most politically contentious and, as Politico noted, “account for nearly 90% of the funding Congress provides each year to federal agencies.”
House Republicans had hoped that DHS’ funding bill would be among those passed this week. But that was before an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, sparking a renewed round of backlash against President Donald Trump’s ongoing deportation spree. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., opted to punt the DHS bill into next week rather than potentially stall the rest of the package.
“Right now, there’s no bipartisan path forward for the Department of Homeland Security,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters Wednesday. Technically, Johnson doesn’t need one to get a bill passed — but Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota does. Funding bills must get past the filibuster, meaning at least a handful of Senate Democrats need to be on board with each measure.
It would be nice to say that congressional Democrats are united on how to use the power of the purse to constrain ICE’s excesses — but this column is a work of nonfiction. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, at least, has drawn a clear line in the sand, arguing that no money should be spent on ICE without major reforms. As The Guardian noted, the lawmakers are hoping to add provisions that “would prevent ICE agents from wearing masks, require warrants for them to make arrests and end the use of private detention facilities, which have been criticized for keeping detainees in squalid conditions.”
Given ICE’s massive unpopularity, this is a fight where it makes sense for them to take a stand.
That list falls far short of calls to fully abolish ICE, but it’s still a no-go for Republicans. Most would actually prefer to see the agency’s budget boosted beyond the roughly $10 billion in annual funding that it received last year as part of the regular budgeting process. Any increase would be on top of the eye-popping $30 billion included in last year’s Big Beautiful Bill for ICE’s deportation efforts alone.
But, as NBC News recently noted, even if Republicans’ preferred DHS bill stalls out, they have a backup option in place:
Congress may have to fall back on a stopgap bill to prevent a funding lapse for DHS. That’s where things get trickier for Democrats. If House Republicans pass a continuing resolution on their own, which would keep DHS running on autopilot, Senate Democrats would again have to choose between accepting it and forcing a partial shutdown. […]
One Democratic aide, discussing the sensitive topic on condition of anonymity, noted that a stopgap funding bill for DHS would provide fewer guardrails and more flexibility for Noem to move money around as she sees fit.
There’s another sticky wicket giving some Democrats pause about calling for a partial shutdown. Noem’s fiefdom was built out of a grab bag of agencies in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The resulting hodgepodge of roles and responsibilities means that failing to pass a DHS funding bill would also affect the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard.
While the administration made sure that ICE and other law enforcement agencies got paid during last year’s shutdown, the same wasn’t true for other “essential” government workers, who still had to turn up at work. ICE operations could also theoretically continue during a shutdown, since last year’s funding boost came outside the normal appropriations process. In effect, we could see long lines at airports as TSA agents call out sick even as deportation raids continue apace.
The optics of backing nationwide delays at airports may open up Democrats to attacks for being too soft on supposedly dangerous immigrants. This may be tough for some swing-seat Democrats to consider. But given ICE’s massive unpopularity, this is an issue on which it makes sense to take a stand.
The full House Democratic Caucus needs to stand united with the progressives against any funding bill that doesn’t help curb ICE’s abuses. And Senate Democrats would be foolish to waste their leverage not maximizing the number of strings that bind Noem’s hands. Republicans might be able to help her avoid the most important reforms, but there’s no reason for Democrats to make it easy for them.
CORRECTION (Jan. 16, 2025, 8:19 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misidentified the name of the federal agency responsible for securing national transportation systems. It is the Transportation Security Administration, not the Travel Security Agency.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House.
