Ahead of DHS funding deadline, Congress weighs its options

WASHINGTON (CN) — With only four days to go until the Department of Homeland Security’s stopgap budget expires, lawmakers on Capitol Hill appear no closer to a deal that would either fully fund the agency or buy Congress more time to negotiate.

And all eyes this week are on Senate Democrats, who have demanded a raft of reforms to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, but who will face a difficult choice between compromise and risking a DHS shutdown that could affect air travel and disaster response.

The Homeland Security Department’s funding has been hanging by a thread for weeks, since Democrats convinced Republicans to peel the agency’s budget off from a package of full-year spending bills that cleared Congress last month. The partisan breakdown came amid President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where federal agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection shot and killed two American citizens.

But while lawmakers approved a two-week budget patch aimed at keeping DHS funded while Congress hammered out its differences, the fiscal deadline is fast approaching, and a compromise has yet to emerge.

As the Senate returns to Washington on Monday, the burning question is whether lawmakers — particularly Democrats — will coalesce around another stopgap funding bill to buy appropriators even more time to negotiate.

It’s a question Democratic leadership hand-waved away last week. Speaking to reporters during a pen-and-pad session on Capitol Hill Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that congressional appropriators from both parties were “talking” but refused to commit to backing a short-term funding patch. He accused Republicans of not having their “act together,” adding that while Democrats have articulated their demands for Homeland Security funding the GOP has yet to make a counteroffer.

“Nothing will get done until we know what Republicans are for,” said Schumer.

Democrats last week unveiled a 10-point list of demands for immigration enforcement reforms, which lawmakers have largely framed as a red line for their party’s support for any DHS funding bill. Democrats have said that any spending plan for the agency should include language forcing federal agents to unmask and wear body cameras, as well as a provision barring them from conducting immigration enforcement operations near “sensitive locations” such as schools and hospitals.

Republicans close to the funding negotiations, such as Alabama Senator Katie Britt, have said the Democratic demands are a nonstarter.

Beyond supporting another stopgap budget for Homeland Security, questions also remain about whether Democrats could get behind a proposal that would see funding for ICE and Border Patrol broken off from the agency’s larger budget. Such a plan would ensure that non-immigration programs under the DHS umbrella such as the Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration remain funded while Congress negotiates.

The House’s top Democrat in charge of appropriations has already said she would support that proposal. In a statement last week, Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro threw her weight behind a plan to peel off ICE and Border Patrol funding from the Homeland Security budget “in order to avoid any disruption to public services or missed paychecks for federal workers.”

“If Republicans are unwilling to reform ICE and CBP, then they will be responsible for any disruptions and deferred paychecks,” DeLauro added.

Schumer, who was insistent that the ball is in Republicans’ court on DHS funding, did not say whether he would back a proposal to split up the agency’s budget. But he did leave the door open to such a possibility.

“The bottom line is that the TSA is very important, and there’s talk in our caucus of how to continue TSA,” he said.

It’s unclear as of Monday afternoon whether Republicans will try to move ahead with a Homeland Security budget without support from Democratic leadership. The GOP needs a handful of Senate Democrats — around eight — to break with their party to secure the necessary majority to move a spending bill.

If Congress fails to approve a stopgap budget or any other spending plan for DHS by Thursday night, the department will be forced to shut down. It’s an outcome some Democrats have suggested is necessary to enforce their demands to reform ICE and Border Patrol operations.

But the lapse in appropriations may only have a muted effect on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign — lawmakers last summer approved roughly $75 billion in new funding for ICE as part of the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

A shutdown’s impact on TSA, however, would likely affect air travel across the country. The appropriations lapse would also mean fallout for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the government’s disaster response center.

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