Senate Democrats want ICE to end roving immigration enforcement patrols, use judicial warrants and require agents to unmask, wear body cameras and carry identification.
Those are among their demands for reining in the Trump administration’s deportation force that Democrats say “routinely operates above the law.”
The dispute is poised to cause a partial government shutdown if not resolved by week’s end.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, laid out the demands after meeting with his caucus on Wednesday.
Their asks also include forcing ICE establish a code of conduct and to coordinate with state and local law enforcement.
“These are common sense reforms, ones that Americans know and expect from law enforcement,” Mr. Schumer said. “If Republicans refuse to support them, they are choosing chaos over order.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters before Mr. Schumer’s press conference that the Trump administration is willing to sit down with Democrats “and have a discussion, perhaps a negotiation, about how do we move forward.”
“A government shutdown is not in anybody’s interest,” he said.
Mr. Schumer said “the White House has had no specific, good concrete ideas” to date.
If the DHS spending bill is not passed, ICE will still have access to billions of dollars Republicans provided for immigration enforcement in their One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“They threw a flag on a hill to die on that doesn’t accomplish what they’re trying to get accomplished,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Oklahoma Republican, of Democrats.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democratic appropriator, said holding up the DHS bill is the only way for Democrats to force Republicans to “grapple with the brutal reality that ICE and CBP are out of control and endangering American citizens.”
The measure passed the House last week along with other outstanding fiscal 2026 spending bills under a procedure that sent them to the Senate as a six-bill package.
Senate Democrats want to strip out the DHS bill and pass the remaining five by Friday’s deadline to avert a partial shutdown. Six of the 12 annual spending bills are already signed into law.
Separating the DHS bill from the broader package would involve procedural maneuvers that need unanimous consent from all 100 senators to tee up, and several Republicans object to doing that.
If the Senate were successful in altering the package, it would require another vote in the House, which is not in session this week. The House Freedom Caucus has threatened to block any spending measure that comes back to them without the DHS bill.
“If the bill changes much from what the House already passed then you’ve got another steep hill to climb over there,” Mr. Thune said.
He said he reserves the option to consider breaking up the package, but that the “best path forward” is to keep it intact.
Some Senate Republicans are open to splitting off the DHS bill from the other five bills funding the departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury and Urban Development.
“Rather than scuttling the whole package, I say let’s go ahead and pass what we can,” said Sen. John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
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