WASHINGTON — Republicans have sought to use the Trump administration’s attack on Iran to pressure Democrats to relent on their demands for funding the Department of Homeland Security.
But Democrats are quickly rejecting that push, making clear they will continue to insist on changes to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as Customs and Border Protection, after federal agents killed two Americans in Minneapolis.
“No,” moderate Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said when asked if the war changes his stance. “I don’t think the two relate.”
King, who caucuses with Democrats, has previously opposed shutdowns. His refusal to pivot serves as an indicator that the party doesn’t intend to back down.
DHS funding expired Feb. 13, forcing a partial shutdown of the department that affects the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard and cybersecurity. Democrats have been negotiating with the White House over changes to immigration enforcement to secure their votes to reopen the agency in full.
If Republicans are worried about protecting the U.S. from terrorist attacks, “we should fund everything at DHS but ICE,” King said. “That would be an easy way to solve any problems that may be present,” he added.
“What does TSA have to do with Iran — or FEMA?” he said, incredulously.
Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., the only Democrat running for re-election this year in a state that Donald Trump won, said Congress can do both: fund DHS while imposing basic standards on immigration agents.
“We want to ensure that the agencies that protect the American people are funded, and ensure that federal agents are upholding the highest standards of conduct and integrity,” Ossoff said.
He said Americans broadly support the idea that federal agents “shouldn’t be assaulting or killing Americans with impunity.”
He added that the Senate could vote right away to ensure that TSA personnel get paid while negotiations continue. They, like many other DHS employees, must work without pay until the funding impasse is resolved, while the White House has found ways to pay others, such as the Secret Service and some law enforcement officials.
Passing a DHS funding bill requires 60 votes in the Senate, where Republicans control 53 seats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tore into what he said was Trump’s “war of choice” in Iran on Tuesday, giving no indication that his stance on DHS has changed.
The White House and Senate Democrats have continued to trade offers back and forth, without revealing many details publicly. So far, they have failed to reach a breakthrough. Republicans have shown no interest in reopening DHS on a partial basis.
The GOP hoped that the Iran war would soften the Democratic resistance to funding DHS unless their conditions were satisfied.
“Right now, obviously, where you’re seeing a potential increase in activity in our interior — it’s more important than ever that we fully fund DHS,” said Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who leads the Appropriations subcommittee that crafts funding bills for DHS. “And I think that there are a number of my Democratic colleagues that hopefully will continue to have conversations, so we can try to do that.”
Sen. David McCormick, D-Pa., made a similar case.
“Now would be a good time for Democrats to drop their opposition to DHS funding and pass the bill to support our homeland security,” he wrote on X. “Continuing to play political games with our national security given the unfolding situation in the Middle East is dangerous.”
But Democrats are unimpressed with their argument, calling it pretextual and irrelevant to the dispute at hand.
“They went to war with Iran (which nobody in America was asking for) so they could conjure an excuse to allow ICE to keep murdering Americans and teargassing schools here at home with impunity (which nobody in America was asking for),” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing DHS, said in response to McCormick.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said there have been “constructive negotiations” to overhaul DHS based on “completely reasonable” requests from Democrats, which he said would persist.
“Bluntly, we shouldn’t say, ‘Oh, we give up on any accountability for ICE’s conduct and any change in training and policy, because we have an urgent national security situation.’ There is robust funding available for a national security moment like this,” Coons said.
