The Department of Homeland Security entered its fourth day of a shutdown on Tuesday with little sign that the funding lapse will end anytime soon.
The House and Senate are both out of town, with lawmakers not planning to return until Monday. Many are traveling across the globe meeting with foreign leaders, taking the focus away from funding. And key DHS agencies are flush with cash from the GOP’s reconciliation bill, decreasing the urgency to strike a deal.
The dynamics are setting the stage for what could be an extended DHS shutdown.
When MS NOW asked a Republican lawmaker on the House Appropriations Committee Monday when the funding lapse might end, the member was blunt: “Your guess is as good as mine.”
While lawmakers don’t seem to be getting much closer to a resolution, they are generating activity.
Late Monday night, Democratic leaders sent Republicans a counteroffer in the DHS negotiations.
The offer — from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. — came five days after the last exchange in negotiations, when the White House sent Democrats an offer Schumer deemed “incomplete and insufficient.”
(Schumer’s office declined to provide specifics about the latest Democratic offer.)
Democrats are insistent that any DHS funding bill include new provisions to rein in immigration enforcement after officers under the DHS banner shot and killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota. Republicans say they’re open to reforms, but thus far, they’ve resisted many of the Democratic demands.
Neither party seems terribly interested in compromise.
Asked on Sunday if Democrats were willing to drop any of their demands to reopen DHS, Jeffries wasn’t exactly direct.
“We’re willing to have a good faith conversation about everything, but, fundamentally, we need change that is dramatic, that is bold, that is meaningful and that is transformational,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” adding that the Democratic requests “are common sense things.”
Meanwhile, Republicans think they’re the ones who are acting reasonably.
“What our Democratic colleagues have to realize is that we’re not gonna walk away from enforcing the law,” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Britt, who’s leading negotiations for the GOP on Capitol Hill, said Republicans had “come to the table with good faith propositions” that “keep our law enforcement officers safe and keep American citizens safe, which is our priority, and I hope that Democrats will join us.”
In other words, no one is budging at the moment.
Earlier this month, Democrats laid out a list of 10 requests for the negotiations, including a requirement that federal agents remove their masks, a mandate that they turn on body cameras, and an order that they obtain judicial warrants before entering private property.
In a sign of just how far apart the two sides are, border czar Tom Homan on Sunday defended agents wearing masks, taking an axe to one of the demands that Democrats see as one of the easiest asks.
“The masks right now are for officer safety reasons,” Homan said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
As the partisan bickering continues — and negotiators make little progress — DHS is prepared for a long shutdown.
More than 90% of the department’s 272,000 employees were classified as “excepted” under its latest shutdown plan, meaning they’ll continue working without pay. On Thursday, another 1,700 furloughed workers will come back to the office, part of a plan to reduce the number of furloughs for shutdowns lasting longer than five days.
The department also has billions of dollars available despite the funding lapse, though the Trump administration hasn’t outlined a plan on how to use that money.
Republicans provided about $178 billion for DHS in last year’s tax-and-spending law, money that continues to be available during a shutdown. That includes $30 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel — with another $45 billion available for ICE overall, and another $65 billion for Customs and Border Protection.
The Office of Management and Budget has acknowledged the money is available and told DHS officials to wait for updates.
“As you know, immigration enforcement and border security operations have ample funding provided through the Working Families Tax Cut Act,” OMB told the department in its Friday shutdown guidance. “The Department should continue to closely monitor developments, and OMB will provide further guidance as appropriate.”
The money from the reconciliation bill could keep ICE and CBP running near full capacity during the shutdown, but it also complicates negotiations. Democrats want a retroactive deal that would apply constraints to last year’s reconciliation funding — not just to the new spending bill.
“We have proposed that the guardrails that will be applied to ICE are applied not just to the present funding but to the previous funding that was in the ‘Big Bad Bill,’” Schumer said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “That’s very important to us. So that will rein in all of the ICE agents no matter where they’re funded.”
The pressure will increase next week.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to give his State of the Union address next Tuesday, potentially putting a brighter spotlight on the negotiations, though there are some questions about whether the speech will be delayed, like it was during the partial government shutdown of 2019.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Jeffries said of the speech. “It’s certainly my hope that we get some resolution … in advance of it.”
Two days after the State of the Union, on Feb. 26, DHS employees are scheduled to receive their first paycheck of the shutdown, which will be cut in half to account for the funding lapse. On March 12, they’ll miss an entire paycheck.
During the historic, 43-day shutdown last year, the fallout at TSA — canceled flights and long lines at airport security — partially prompted lawmakers to come together and strike a deal, ending the funding lapse.
This time around, lawmakers have an eye toward TSA as a potential pressure point for compromise. But first, they’re using it as a political pawn.
“Here’s the thing,” Jeffries said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “The administration and Republicans have made a clear decision that they would rather shut down FEMA, shut down the Coast Guard and shut down TSA than enact the type of dramatic reforms necessary so that ICE and other DHS law enforcement agencies are conducting themselves like every other law enforcement professional in the country.”
Britt echoed that sentiment — but with her aim at Democrats — saying on “Fox News Sunday” that Democrats “know that ICE and CBP will continue to be funded throughout this.”
“But they know that the other things that keep Americans safe will not and that actual American workers, TSA agents, will be the ones paying the price,” she added.
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