House and Senate Democrats plan to release a detailed list by Thursday of the immigration enforcement guardrails they want added to a full-year Department of Homeland Security spending bill.
They said they hope the offer will spur Republicans to come to the table and engage in bipartisan negotiations, which have yet to begin in earnest despite lawmakers agreeing to give themselves a Feb. 13 deadline when the department’s funding expires.
“We’re going to have tough, strong legislation. We hope to have it within the next 24 hours,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said at a press conference with Democratic leaders from both chambers.
“Then we want our Republican colleagues to finally get serious about this because this is turning America inside out in a way we haven’t seen in a very long time,” he said, describing the Trump administration’s deportation force as “goons beating people, pushing people, and even shooting and killing people.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said he has encouraged the White House to set up a negotiating meeting after Democrats release their list of demands.
Democrats have so far laid out broad descriptions of what they want: ending roving immigration patrols; requiring federal agents to unmask, wear body cameras and carry identification; mandating judicial warrants for arrests; and ensuring independent investigations for use-of-force incidents.
“We are united with the American people that DHS and this paramilitary force that they have created and unleashed on our American streets will be held accountable,” House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark said.
The public outcry after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti during anti-ICE protests in Minnesota has given Democrats confidence in their fight to rein in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
DHS this week said it would outfit all its agents in Minnesota with body cameras and hopes to expand it nationwide if funding becomes available. In an earlier version of the DHS bill, lawmakers provided $20 billion for body cameras but no language requiring their use.
Democrats have also demanded a complete withdrawal of the 3,000 agents and officers deployed to the Minneapolis area. The White House this week said it would draw down 700 of them, but the others would remain until local authorities demonstrate better cooperation in turning over deportation targets.
Republicans have pointed to local leaders not cooperating with federal law enforcement as the root of the chaos and have said ending sanctuary city policies must be part of the negotiations.
GOP lawmakers have also said they would not agree to a judicial warrant requirement or forcing agents to demask and bear identification when immigration enforcement officers have been targets of doxing.
President Trump and congressional Republicans reluctantly agreed to Democrats’ request to remove a previously negotiated full-year DHS spending bill from a broader government funding package so the other outstanding fiscal 2026 appropriations bills could be enacted.
The spending package, signed into law Tuesday, funds DHS on a temporary stopgap that expires Feb. 13.
Republicans wanted a later deadline, but Democrats insisted on the earlier date as they argued for the need to quickly rein in ICE and other DHS agencies assisting with arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants.
Mr. Thune said Democrats’ insistence on negotiating the DHS bill within two weeks “makes absolutely no sense” and signals they’re just interested in using it as a political issue.
“Whether or not they want a solution remains to be seen, but at least what they’re saying publicly suggests that that’s not their objective,” he said.
Mr. Thune said his aides have been in touch with Mr. Schumer’s staff but that Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, the Republican appropriator in charge of the DHS bill, will be leading the negotiations for his conference.
If the negotiations do not yield a result or show promise of one by next week, Mr. Thune and other Republicans have said they will likely have to pass another DHS stopgap spending bill running the remainder of the fiscal year.
Democrats would not support a full-year DHS stopgap, warned House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
Mr. Thune said Mr. Jeffries is not a good-faith partner in these negotiations and predicted he and Mr. Schumer will be unlikely to compromise given the pressure from their left wing.
“Any time they’re negotiating in any way with the Trump administration, their base has a meltdown and these guys seem to be very, very afraid of that,” he said.
Mr. Jeffries pushed back, saying, “We are negotiating in good faith because we want to try to achieve an outcome, but the changes that are enacted with respect to the way in which the Department of Homeland Security is conducting itself need to be bold, meaningful and transformative.”
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
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