DHS shutdown all but inevitable after Democrats reject offer to postpone the Friday deadline

Democrats are refusing to extend the latest deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security, all but guaranteeing the department will shut down at midnight Friday.

Democratic lawmakers insist there is time to work out a full-year funding deal in the next three days, with the restrictions on immigration enforcement that they demand, and that punting the deadline beyond Friday would take away the urgency toward that goal.

“I’m just not right now prepared to give them more money without reform,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Michigan Democrat, told The Washington Times.

Even Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who was one of only three Democrats to consistently vote to reopen the government during the record 43-day shutdown last year, is not entertaining another short-term funding bill, known on Capitol Hill as a continuing resolution or CR.

“The Republicans need to provide a serious counterproposal,” she said. “There’s more than enough time for us to negotiate. We don’t need a CR.”

Democrats insisted on a two-week DHS stopgap extension from the previous Jan. 30 deadline, which Republicans argued would not be enough time to work out the parties’ disagreements over immigration enforcement.

“The Democrats took the better part of a week and a half to get their proposal in. And now the White House has reacted to it, responded and submitted a counterproposal, which the Democrats are evaluating,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, citing that as “progress.”

“I don’t know how much more time will be required,” he said, “But I think it’s fair to say that it’s going to take some amount of time, and we should at least extend the continuing resolution to allow for that.”

The DHS spending bill provides funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol, agencies running President Trump’s deportation force that Democrats want to overhaul. However, those two agencies will not shut down without annual appropriations because Republicans provided them with a separate stream of funding through their One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The DHS agencies that are poised to be impacted by a shutdown are ones Democrats support, such as the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard.

“I’m willing to come up with other creative ideas on how we fund the agencies that are doing really important work – TSA, FEMA, Customs and Border [Patrol] for their border work and things that are important to Michigan – but not giving them more money without a commitment to reform in writing,” Ms. Slotkin said.

House Democrats will also oppose a DHS stopgap extension “until the administration is serious about negotiations to curb the lawlessness that we see by ICE and CBP,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar, the caucus chairman.

“We’re willing to engage in other strategies that protect other aspects of Homeland Security – Coast Guard, TSA and FEMA – if our colleagues are willing to engage,” the California Democrat said.

Republicans rejected that idea.

“What they want to do is to be able to shut it down without being held responsible,” said Sen. John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican. “They want their cake and to eat it too.”

Mr. Thune said he will have the Senate vote on funding every agency under DHS.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democratic appropriator for the DHS bill, said the White House’s counteroffer to Democrats’ 10-point list of immigration enforcement demands is “not serious” and “seems to be a delaying tactic.”

A White House official told The Times the administration is continuing “constructive conversations” with members of both parties.

“President Trump wants the government to remain open and for critical services to remain funded,” the official said.    

Democrats’ demands include requiring ICE to implement a code of conduct with limitations on the use of force, barring federal agents from entering homes without a judicial warrant and making agents de-mask and wear identification.

They also want to give local authorities the ability to deny “large-scale” federal enforcement operations and bar all arrests near “sensitive” locations such as hospitals, churches, courts and schools.

Conservatives argue that the Democrats’ demands would all but end Mr. Trump’s mass deportations.

The White House counteroffer was not made public, but Republicans have said requiring local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities is among their top priorities.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, told reporters that the White House offer was “woefully inadequate” and didn’t include requiring judicial warrants, tougher restrictions on use of force and mandatory independent investigations into use of force incidents.

Mr. Jeffries also said the White House offer did not include “detention center reform.”

The Democrats want to ensure all detainees, whether housed in an official or makeshift detention facility, have immediate access to an attorney and that officials verify the arrested person is not a U.S. citizen before they are held in detention.

A DHS funding stalemate could impact plans from senators in both parties to attend the Munich Security Conference, which starts Friday and runs through Sunday.

• Mallory Wilson contributed to this report.