House set to vote on DHS funding this week - Spectrum News

WASHINGTON — House Republicans this week will try again to convince Democrats to join them in backing a bill to end the 2½-week-old partial shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, warning the U.S. military operations in Iran have upped the stakes, despite little indication the two sides have come any closer to an agreement on changes to immigration enforcement.

Speaking at a news conference at the Capitol on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., noted the DHS funding bill is set to come to the floor for a vote Thursday, going on to slam Democrats and urging Americans to “watch” the outcome closely.

“Anybody who votes to block funding for the homeland, it is shameful. I don’t know how else to describe it,” Johnson asserted. “It speaks to a long record of Democrats’ deliberate efforts to undermine America’s safety and the essential operations of DHS.”

The department has been without full funding since mid-February, as Democrats demand changes from President Donald Trump and Republicans to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and the administration’s immigration enforcement policies more broadly.

After a record-long shutdown across the government this past fall — driven primarily by the issue of health care — followed by a short partial one earlier this year, the fight over DHS funding was sparked after the killing of two people in Minneapolis by federal agents amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the city.

Republicans are now arguing Trump’s decision to strike Iran and launch an ongoing military operation has increased the urgency for the department to be fully funded. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., argued Wednesday that “this is no time” for the department to be shut down and its “ability to protect Americans limited.”

“We need to be more vigilant than ever and have a fully functioning Department of Homeland Security with all the capabilities, cyber capabilities, which right now are dramatically limited because of Democrats' reckless and dangerous action to shut that department down,” he said at the news conference alongside Johnson.

Democrats have rejected the premise and given no sign they plan to approach the funding fight differently. Speaking at a news conference at the Capitol on Tuesday, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, argued that the Trump administration decided “to spend billions of dollars to bomb Iran rather than spend taxpayer dollars to lower the grocery bills.”

“And then wants to use his unauthorized war as an excuse to continue spending taxpayer dollars to brutalize or kill American citizens by continuing to unleash ICE without restrictions on the American people,” Jeffries continued. “The whole thing is insane. Make it make sense, because it does not."

Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, who is also a member of House Democratic leadership, similarly made clear to reporters Wednesday that his party would “continue to oppose this terrible homeland bill because they are trying to use ICE and CBP money against American citizens.” He went on to point to an attempt from Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, who is the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, to pass a bill that would fund other agencies at the department, including TSA and FEMA, while allowing conversations on ICE to continue.

“The speaker controls the ability — he can put that bill up now and I would all but guarantee that that bill would pass,” Aguilar said. “He is choosing not to do that. He is choosing to engage in this fake fight.”

Despite immigration enforcement being the crux of the shutdown, ICE and Customs and Border Protection were expected to be the least impacted due to the influx of money Republicans and Trump allocated to it in their “one big, beautiful bill" signed into law this past summer.

Several other agencies housed in the department, however, are facing the effects of the funding lapse, including the Coast Guard, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, FEMA and the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA.

Meanwhile, Johnson is also slamming Democratic leadership for encouraging its members in the House to vote against the bill this week, reposting what is known as a whip notice from the party shared with Politico that urges them to vote no and calling it a “shameful abandonment of duty and a stunning failure of leadership.”

The legislation has a good chance of passing in the House, where Republicans hold a slim majority. But it is likely to run into challenges in the Senate, where the chamber’s filibuster rules mean it would need the support of a handful of Democrats to pass. Efforts to pass a funding bill in the Senate fell flat last week.

Jeffries and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York have been exchanging proposals with the White House on changes to ICE thus far to no avail.

In a joint statement Friday, spokespeople for Jeffries and Schumer, said the pair received a new counteroffer from the White House and were "reviewing it closely.”