A Republican-led plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security without funding ICE’s detention and deportation operations is teetering as President Trump said he is “not happy” with it and Democrats said they cannot vote for it without additional changes.
Senate Republicans on Tuesday sent Democrats legislative text of the plan to fund 94% of the department, excluding roughly half of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s budget, specifically $5.5 billion for its Enforcement and Removal Operations division that identifies, arrests, detains and deports illegal immigrants.
They thought Mr. Trump had signed off on the plan during a White House meeting with a handful of Republican senators on Monday night.
Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio, one of the Republicans at the meeting, told The Washington Times that the president pointed out during the discussion that ICE and Customs and Border Protection already have funding to fulfill his deportation agenda under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The president suggested that Republicans could backfill and even add to that funding in a second filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package.
“Those are two of his ideas. It wasn’t us convincing him of anything,” Mr. Moreno said.
A White House official told The Washington Times early Tuesday that Mr. Trump was willing to back the multistep funding plan.
The president waffled when asked about it later as he swore in newly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican he plucked from the Senate.
“Any deal they make I’m pretty much not happy with,” Mr. Trump said of Senate Republicans.
The president said he would not commit to signing the partial funding measure until he saw the proposal. He reiterated his desire to tie the department’s funding to the SAVE America Act, a Republican election integrity bill that he also is using to push a crackdown on transgender policies.
“We’re going to take a good, hard look at it,” Mr. Trump said. “I want to support Republicans. And you know, sometimes it’s awfully hard to get votes when you have Democrats that don’t want to have voter ID, they don’t want to have proof of citizenship, they don’t want to do anything about men playing in women’s sports.”
Senate Republicans have said they would try to include some of those policies in a budget reconciliation package, along with more money for ICE.
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The president’s wavering is not the only obstacle.
Republicans thought Democrats had signed off on the partial funding proposal, similar to a plan they had floated for weeks before they brought it to the White House.
“If the Democrats back up, that would be very sad, because they’re always asking me to do things for Trump,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who was at the Monday meeting.
“I was told this is a deal the body had reached,” he said. “I didn’t go down there and spend two hours with the president to get him to where the deal was to only have it changed. We can’t function that way.”
Democratic leaders said they never signed off on a deal and that they still need some of the immigration enforcement policy changes they have been demanding.
“If we are talking about funding any part of ICE or CBP, we absolutely must take some key steps to rein them in,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democratic appropriator. “The current Republican offer in front of us does not do that.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said his caucus is united in that view. He said Democrats will respond to Republicans’ proposal with a counteroffer that includes “significant reform” of ICE. He declined to elaborate.
Some Democrats did not draw a hard line against accepting the Republican offer. They emphasized their desire to end the chaos at America’s airports caused by the Homeland Security Department shutdown.
More than 400 Transportation Security Administration agents have quit since the shutdown started on Feb. 14. Although that is a small portion of the agency’s 50,000 employees, others have contributed to the staffing shortage by calling out of work.
“We need to fund TSA. That’s it,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Democrat. “And then all the other things we can talk about, negotiate and come to some kind of agreement on.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said the bill will include previously agreed-upon provisions to boost ICE training, oversight and the use of body cameras, but none of the Democrats’ broader demands, such as requiring ICE agents to demask and to use judicial warrants for arrests on private property.
“If they want to have a conversation about some of the reform ideas that they had put in front of us, then that would be contingent upon actually providing funding for ICE,” Mr. Thune said.
He seemed resolute about bringing the Republican plan to a vote. He said Democrats will have an opportunity to “put their money where their mouth is” and show whether they are sincere about reopening the Homeland Security Department.
If Republicans can get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, then they have their work cut out for them in implementing the second step of the plan: a party-line budget reconciliation package.
ICE funding could easily be passed through that process, as Republicans proved last summer, but the SAVE America Act is another story.
The budget reconciliation process’ exemption from the Senate filibuster comes with strict rules that any policy changes included in it must have more than a “merely incidental” impact on federal spending or revenue.
Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican and lead sponsor of the SAVE America Act, said it is “essentially impossible” to structure the bill to meet those standards.
“I don’t see any way that any part of the SAVE America Act of any teeth gets included in a reconciliation package,” said Sen. Rick Scott, Florida Republican.
Other Republicans, including Mr. Graham, the Budget Committee chairman, say they can find a way to push through some of the policies but have yet to flesh out the specifics.
“I think we can make a down payment on it in reconciliation,” Mr. Graham told The Times.
It would likely involve rewriting portions of the bill to have a greater budget impact. One idea is to provide federal aid for states to implement the measure’s election requirements.
Mr. Trump said Republicans are “certainly talking about reconciliation.” He deferred to Mr. Mullin to explain more.
“There’s a framework that we can do through reconciliation — paying for it, putting some of the policies that cost money in — because there’s nothing more important than the SAVE America Act,” Mr. Mullin said. “That’s what the American people want.”
Republicans could be setting up their base for more disappointment. It is the Senate parliamentarian who decides which policies can be passed through budget reconciliation.
Mr. Thune said Republicans would work with the parliamentarian to craft a proposal that complies with the rules but does not expect to overrule her final decision, a move many senators view as akin to nuking the filibuster.
“I have a feeling that Sen. Graham is going to lasso some of the best legal minds in the country who have a lot of experience with [reconciliation],” said Sen. John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican. “It’s worth a shot.”
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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