GOP plan to reopen DHS falters with Trump ‘unhappy,’ Democrats still demanding big changes for ICE

A Republican-led plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security without funding ICE detention and deportation operations is faltering as President Trump said he was “not happy with it” and Democrats said they could not vote for it without additional changes.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday sent Democrats legislative text of the plan to fund 94 percent of the department, excluding about half of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget, specifically $5.5 billion for its Enforcement and Removal Operations division that identifies, arrests, detains and deports illegal immigrants.

They believed Mr. Trump had approved the plan during a meeting at the White House with a handful of Republican senators on Monday evening.

Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio, one of the Republicans at the meeting, told The Washington Times that the president emphasized during the discussion that ICE and Customs and Border Protection already have funds to carry out his deportation agenda under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The president suggested that Republicans could replace and even increase that funding as part of a second filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package.

“These are two of his ideas. We weren’t the ones who convinced him of anything,” Mr. Moreno said.

A White House official told The Washington Times on Tuesday that Mr. Trump was willing to support the phased funding plan.

The president balked when asked about it later as he administered the oath of office to new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican he had plucked from the Senate.

“I’m not at all happy with any deal they make,” 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 uses to crack down on transgender policies.

“We’re going to think about it carefully,” Mr. Trump said. “I want to support the Republicans. And you know, sometimes it’s terribly difficult to get votes when you have Democrats who don’t want to have voter ID, they don’t want to have proof of citizenship, they don’t want to do anything against men playing women’s sports.”

Senate Republicans have said they will try to include some of those policies in a budget reconciliation package, along with more money for ICE.

The president’s hesitations are not the only obstacle.

Republicans believed Democrats had approved the partial funding proposal, similar to a plan they had floated for weeks before presenting it to the White House.

“If the Democrats back down, it would be very sad, because they’re always asking me to do things for Trump,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who was at Monday’s meeting.

“I was told that this was an agreement that the body had reached,” he said. “I didn’t go out there and spend two hours with the president to get him to where the deal was and just get it changed. We can’t operate that way.”

Democratic leaders have said they never signed a deal and still need some of the immigration enforcement policy changes they have been calling for.

“If we’re talking about defunding any part of ICE or CBP, we absolutely have to take key steps to rein them in,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the leading Democratic appropriator. “The current Republican offer before us does not allow for that. »

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said his caucus was united on the issue. He said Democrats would respond to the Republican proposal with a counteroffer that included “meaningful reform” of ICE. He declined to give further details.

Some Democrats have not taken a hard line against accepting the Republican offer. They emphasized their desire to end the chaos at U.S. airports caused by the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

More than 400 Transportation Security Administration agents have resigned since the shutdown began on February 14. Although this is only a small portion of the agency’s 50,000 employees, others have contributed to the staffing shortage by calling for unemployment.

“We need to fund the TSA. That’s it,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono, Democrat of Hawaii. “And then all the other things we can talk about and negotiate and come to some sort of agreement.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said the bill would include previously agreed-upon provisions to strengthen ICE training, surveillance and use of body cameras, but none of Democrats’ broader demands, such as requiring ICE agents to unmask themselves and use court warrants for arrests on private property.

“If they want to have a conversation about some of the reform ideas that they’ve brought to us, it’s going to depend on actually providing funding to ICE,” Mr. Thune said.

He seemed determined to put the Republican plan to a vote. He said Democrats will have an opportunity to “walk their talk” and show whether they are sincere about reopening the Department of Homeland Security.

If Republicans can secure the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, then they will have their work cut out for them in implementing the second stage of the plan: a party-line budget reconciliation package.

Defunding ICE could easily go through this process, as Republicans proved last summer, but the SAVE America Act is a different story.

Exempting the budget reconciliation process from the Senate filibuster comes with strict rules that any policy changes included therein must have more than a “merely incidental” impact on federal spending or revenue.

Sen. Mike Lee, Republican of Utah and the lead sponsor of the SAVE America Act, said it was “essentially impossible” to structure the bill to meet those standards.

“I don’t see how any part of the SAVE America Act would be included in a reconciliation package,” said Sen. Rick Scott, Republican of Florida.

Other Republicans, including Mr. Graham, chairman of the Budget Committee, say they can find a way to pass some policies, but they still need to hammer out the details.

“I think we can pay a deposit as a reconciliation,” Mr. Graham told the Times.

This would likely involve rewriting parts of the bill to have a greater budgetary impact. One idea is to provide federal aid to states to implement the measure’s election requirements.

Mr. Trump said Republicans are “certainly talking about reconciliation.” He deferred to Mr. Mullin to explain further.

“There is a framework that we can put in place through reconciliation – paying for it, putting in place some of the policies that cost money – because there is nothing more important than the SAVE America Act,” Mr. Mullin said. “This is what the American people want.”

Republicans could prepare their base for more disappointment. It is the Senate parliamentarian who decides which policies can be adopted through budget reconciliation.

Mr. Thune said Republicans would work with the parliamentarian to develop a proposal that complies with the rules, but do not expect to overturn her final decision, a decision that many senators see as tantamount to neutralizing the filibuster.

“I have a feeling that Senator Graham is going to lasso some of the best jurists in the country who have a lot of experience in [reconciliation]”said Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana. “It’s worth it. “