The House ended the partial government shutdown last week by passing legislation containing five full-year spending bills for 2026 — Pentagon ($839 billion); Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education ($195 billion); Transportation and Housing and Urban Development ($103 billion); Financial Services and General Government ($26 billion); State Department ($50 billion) — and a temporary funding extension for the Department of Homeland Security (prorated based on its $89 billion 2025 budget).
The spending package originally contained a full-year Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill, but the Senate replaced it with a two-week funding measure after Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents summarily executed legal observer Alex Pretti, RN. The Senate approved the amended legislation on January 30, sending it back to the House. Democratic leaders said they would use those two weeks to negotiate Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reforms as a condition for approving the full-year DHS funding bill.
On Wednesday, House and Senate minority leaders Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) proposed ten reforms for ICE, which you can read here. None of them involve reducing ICE funding.
The question isn’t whether these proposed reforms are any good. The question is whether they’re worth $11 billion. Why? Because there’s $11 billion for ICE in the pending 2026 DHS bill, and agreeing to the reforms unlocks the Democratic votes needed to pass it.
If you’re ICE, it’s an easy choice: take the money. First, concede some of Jeffries and Schumer’s ten demands, then ignore the rest once the DHS bill passes. You’ll eventually get a strongly worded letter from Jeffries and Schumer for disregarding the agreed-upon reforms, but it’s not like your livelihood (budget) will be in danger. If Democratic leaders won’t try to cut ICE’s funding after it murders several people, they’re not going to block funding over masks and…
Auteur: Stephen Semler
