WASHINGTON — Democrats are weighing whether to use the Jan. 30 deadline to demand restrictions on President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown after an ICE officer was shot and killed. an American in Minneapolis.
Progressives in the House and Senate are calling on their party to strongly oppose a Department of Homeland Security funding bill unless it comes with strings attached — such as requiring agents to carry ID, limiting Customs and Border Protection agents at the border and requiring court warrants to arrest suspects in immigration cases.
They say Trump is using autocratic tactics by deploying masked agents in cities to intimidate Americans who don’t support him.
“Democrats cannot vote for a DHS budget that does not rein in the growing lawlessness of this agency,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing DHS. written the after the Minneapolis shootings.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus announced Tuesday that its members have formally voted to oppose any bill to fund DHS “unless there are significant and meaningful reforms to immigration enforcement practices.”
Democratic blowback over the ICE shooting in Minnesota, which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and the White House have defended, could pose a problem for congressional Republicans who will need at least some Democratic votes to fund the government — including DHS — before Jan. 31 or risk a shutdown.
The Democratic opposition has already frozen a DHS measure that was to be added to an appropriations package up for a Senate vote this week. Republicans control Congress and have largely supported Trump on ICE deployments across the country, but such a bill requires 60 votes to pass the Senate.
Congress may need to resort to a stopgap bill to avoid a disruption in DHS funding. This is where things get complicated for Democrats. If House Republicans themselves pass a continuing resolution, which would keep DHS on autopilot, Senate Democrats would again have to choose between accepting it or imposing a partial shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would not say whether he was open to immigration enforcement guardrails when asked by NBC News on Tuesday.
But he called on Democrats not to authorize a new lockdown.
“I think government shutdowns are stupid. I don’t think anyone wins. I hope Democrats share that view,” he said, while acknowledging that funding DHS is “the hardest” and that it’s possible that if we can’t get a deal there could be some sort of CR that would fund some of these bills next year.
Last fall’s record shutdown, triggered by a health care dispute, resulted in no concessions for the Democrats. And unlike the Affordable Care Act, a winning issue for Democrats, some in the party are more wary of an impasse on immigration. The center-left Third Way group is encouraging Democrats must avoid restarting the “Abolish the ice” speech.
And some Democrats note that the Investment of 170 billion dollars for immigration control was approved by Republicans on a party-line basis in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last summer. This would not be affected even if DHS funding through the normal appropriations process expires.
A 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.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sidestepped questions about whether he favored withholding DHS funding to impose restrictions on ICE, calling it “one of the major issues facing the appropriators right now.”
“The reappropriators are working on this right now with all four corners and trying to come to an agreement,” he said.
House Democrats’ strategy on ICE was a major topic of conversation during a closed-door party meeting Tuesday, according to attendees. But the conversation focused more on finding ways to hold the Trump administration accountable, other than withholding money from the agency.
One example of how they plan to proceed: Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee will hold a field hearing in the Minneapolis area on Friday, where they plan to highlight ICE’s impact in the community.
“That was the gist of what we talked about,” said Rep. Rebecca Balint, D-Vt., who plans to attend the hearing. “The plea to the caucus was that we need to hold people accountable. We need to provide oversight when our colleagues won’t do it.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, ranking member of the House Judiciary subcommittee overseeing immigration and former chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus, said that if Democrats wait until next year, “a lot of people are going to die by then, because this is now a federalized military force on the loose.”
“Obviously the Senate has more influence than the House, but I think it’s also extremely important that we are on record opposed to this amount of funding, in the first place, and funding without any accountability or guardrails,” she said. “So we have a list of guardrails that we’ve been working on with our leadership and the Senate.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called ICE and Noem “totally out of control” and requiring “common sense” restrictions that mirror the conduct of law enforcement.
“What we have in front of us right now is a spending bill that will go in one of two directions,” he told reporters. “Republicans will either continue their take-the-highway approach when it comes to the homeland security bill, and if that happens, then it will be up to them to find a path forward.”
Before the Minneapolis shooting, a national poll by Associated Press revealed last month that only 38% of American adults approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, while 60% disapprove.
A YouGov/Economist survey taken Jan. 9-12 after the Minneapolis shootings, found that 69% of U.S. adults said they had seen video of the shooting, while 22% said they had heard about it. Seventy-three percent said ICE agents should wear uniforms when making arrests, and 56% said they should not be allowed to wear masks when arresting people. A majority said ICE made the United States “less safe.” And respondents said 46 percent to 43 percent favored “abolishing ICE,” within the survey’s margin of error.
Sahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.
Kyle Stewart is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, handling coverage of the House.
Melanie Zanona is a Capitol Hill correspondent for NBC News.
