Democrats Appear Ready to Duck a Key Fight on ICE

Top Senate Democrats are focused on other priorities in the government funding fight.

Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images

Thin blue line

During the last battle over government funding, which resulted in a record 43-day shutdown, Democrats showed that they had it in them to hold firm—at least for a long while—in an effort to push their policy priorities to the forefront of political debate. Enough of them ultimately voted to open the government. But as a whole, they succeeded in creating a political headache over health care that Republicans might not be able to shake for years. The deal they cut only funded the government through the end of January. But now, with funding for parts of the government set to expire once again, Democrats appear suddenly reluctant to use their leverage to address another issue that is important to their base (and, frankly, a lot of voters outside of it): the money pouring into ICE.

Republicans signaled they might be anticipating a battle over the Department of Homeland Security’s funding (from which ICE’s budget is drawn) when they released a minibus¹ Sunday night that unexpectedly excluded DHS. The decision to put off specifying how much money they are seeking for the department followed the shocking shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Good by an ICE agent as she drove away from a protest in her car. It was a tragic example of the agency’s abuse and incompetence, and unfortunately, it is far from the only one.

Despite the fast-spreading outrage over the actions of DHS, many Senate Democrats aren’t eager to wage a fight over the department’s budget as part of this month’s funding fight.

I asked a number of Senate Democrats if increasing ICE funding is a red line for them in the upcoming budget negotiations. Most of the lawmakers I spoke with refrained from describing it in that way, opting instead to strongly criticize the agency without specifying what legislative action they might be willing to take to address the problems.

“I just think there are ways we can call out this behavior and the kind of level of disruption that’s taking place in city after city,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). He mentioned reduced training requirements for ICE officers being a serious concern.

“Well I certainly don’t wanna see funding increases,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) told me.

“We’re going through these negotiations right now. I don’t wanna see that funding [for ICE],” Kim added. “I don’t ever make predictions about where my vote’s coming down on, but what I will say is that I’m certainly gonna fight to stop it.”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said she does not support increases to ICE’s budget, but offloaded much of the responsibility for whether that happens onto her GOP colleagues.

“Yeah, I would ask my Republican colleagues who are obviously taking the lead on these [appropriation bills],” she said. “Is this what they want to rubber stamp for residential neighborhoods across this country? Thousands of masked, armed agents coming into their communities?”

When asked by another reporter if she wants policy changes for DHS separate from strictly by-the-numbers funding, Baldwin, a member of the Appropriations Committee, suggested that programmatic reforms to an agency would be a separate matter from a debate over how much money to give said agency.

“That’s obviously—I don’t wanna get in the weeds—that’s obviously an authorizing committee issue,” she said. “When we’re talking about appropriations, I call on my Republicans . . . do they wanna rubber stamp this or what?”

Such statements are bound to spark agitation if not horror from progressives, who have been practically begging the party to find ways to slow the Trump administration’s assault on Minneapolis and other American cities. Congressional Democrats enjoy very few leverage points at which they can push their policy priorities. The sixty-vote threshold in the Senate required for a government funding bill is one of them. But the party is also still grappling with the setbacks in the 2024 elections, when Democrats’ past calls for abolishing ICE hurt them at the polls.

And so, they’re treading gingerly, if not fearfully into this coming funding showdown. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security—and one of the party’s most vocal critics of Trump’s authoritarian impulses—said discussions are taking place about the path forward on DHS funding and reform. But he stopped short of making any formal policy commitments.

“It’s obviously natural that Democrats would wanna make sure that any money we spend in DHS is being spent lawfully, and right now that department is full of unlawful activity, so I’m not gonna negotiate out loud,” Murphy told reporters. “This would obviously be a very inopportune time to give an agency that is acting lawlessly a whole bunch of more money. ICE has so much money it has no idea what to do with it.”

Murphy noted that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed on a party-line vote last year contained $75 billion for ICE. “So obviously ICE is not suffering from a lack of money,” he added.

At least one Senate Democrat, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), did characterize additional funding for ICE as a personal nonstarter.

“DHS funding, period, is a red line for me until they start answering Congress’s questions,” Booker said. “I’ve sent questions about training and professional standards to them for months now, and they haven’t even responded. So if they’re not in compliance with simple oversight questions, why should they get their resources? They have to answer to Congress.”

Booker introduced a bill in July that would both prohibit DHS personnel from wearing non-medical masks and require them to display individual and agency identification.

But Booker is also just one of 47 caucusing Democrats. And unless he is joined by 40 committed colleagues to demand changes to ICE or reductions in DHS funds as part of a government funding bill, then neither will happen. That, for now, appears to be the likely outcome. Senate Democrats I spoke with seemed unusually coy about whether a bill like Booker’s could find life as a compromise policy rider—something they could demand in exchange for allowing further DHS funding to go through.

All this is taking place against the backdrop of the public clearly souring on the role that ICE is playing under Trump. A flash poll YouGov conducted in the aftermath of Good’s killing in Minneapolis showed the agency’s approval rating underwater. But as far as pressing issues go, immigration enforcement is a less-sure bet than health care policy, where Democrats have historically good favorability compared to Republicans. In short: Don’t get your hopes up about Democrats making ICE’s funding their central concern as we head toward our next government funding impasse.

Bubba hubbub

Former President Bill Clinton was supposed to sit for a deposition with the House Oversight Committee Tuesday morning as part of their ongoing Jeffrey Epstein investigation. But he didn’t show up, defying a subpoena. His wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is set to testify tomorrow. She is set to skip her deposition, as well.

While neither of the Clintons has held public office of any kind since 2013, the couple’s subpoena shenanigans could result in significant legal and political consequences. Outside the room where the Clintons were supposed to sit, Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told reporters that he would be moving to hold the former president in contempt of Congress.²

“I think it’s important to note that this subpoena was voted on in a bipartisan manner by this committee,” Comer said. “This wasn’t something that I just issued as chairman of the committee.”

“We’ve had former Trump cabinet secretary [Alex] Acosta in for a grilling. We had Bill Barr—former attorney general—in for a grilling,” Comer added. “But for whatever reason, President Clinton didn’t show up, and the Democrats on the committee don’t seem to have a problem.”

Comer’s Epstein investigation has moved about as fast as an unwilling mule when compared to the discharge petition demanding the release of the Epstein files. The latter rapidly attained the status of law in November. But, since then, the Trump administration has not fully complied with document disclosure deadlines and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has accused the Comer-led panel of being stage-managed by the White House.

The Clintons would likely agree with Massie. In a lengthy, pointed letter, they accused Comer of orchestrating nothing more than a political attack on them.

“Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences,” the Clintons wrote in the letter, which they provided first to the New York Times. “For us, now is that time.”

They said that if Comer were to pursue contempt charges against them, they would view it as “our contribution to fighting the madness” since it would mean bringing the rest of the GOP’s congressional agenda “to a standstill.”

“We are confident that any reasonable person in or out of Congress will see, based on everything we release, that what you are doing is trying to punish those who you see as your enemies and to protect those you think are your friends,” the Clintons continued.

This burgeoning legal drama may take a while to play out. And though it seems unthinkable at this juncture, it could result in someone spending some time in jail—just ask Steve Bannon.

Political promises

Politicians like to make promises. I like to hold them to account when they break them. Here is a promise just begging to be broken by the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul.

Will she actually do it? I think any voter would be disappointed if this post hit the 100,000-like threshold only for Hochul to refuse to body slam a folding table. Worse even than Hochul’s refusal or pretending to forget about the post would be if her team farmed out the core task, which is body slamming a folding table, to a staffer wearing a mask of the governor. If you promise people that under certain conditions you will body slam a folding table—and this is a big deal up in Buffalo—then by God, when those conditions obtain, you know what you, and you alone, must do.

As of the time of publication, the Hochul team’s post has 7,500 likes. Get it to over 100,000, and we’ll see if Gov. Hochul is a person of honor after all.

1. In keeping with the congressional tradition of making up weird little terms for everything, a minibus is a single bill that bundles together a few appropriations bills.

2. Comer said this while standing next to Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who in 2022 refused to comply with a subpoena from the January 6th Committee.