Democrats DHS Funding Bill: ICE Restrictions Included
WASHINGTON ― Democrats highlighted limited checks on President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement within a bipartisan spending bill for the Department of Homeland security on Tuesday. They cautioned that shutting down the agency,as some progressives propose,won’t effectively restrain Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown.
“ICE must be reined in, and regrettably, neither a continuing resolution nor a shutdown would do anything to restrain it,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Republicans have already given ICE a massive slush fund – $75 billion – it can tap regardless of whether we pass a funding bill.”
“The idea that a shutdown would curb this administration’s lawlessness isn’t realistic. Under a continuing resolution and during a shutdown, they can continue everything they’re already doing, but without the critical guardrails and constraints of a full-year funding bill,” Murray added.
Some on the left want to withhold funding from ICE due to its often harsh tactics, including the detention of both immigrants and U.S. citizens in states like Minnesota. Others seek to restructure or abolish the agency entirely.
However, the $64 billion DHS funding bill doesn’t go that far. It maintains ICE spending at $10 billion, the same as last year. It also allocates $18 billion for Customs and Border Protection, $1 billion less than the Trump administration requested.