Congress begins two-week battle over DHS funding bill

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

U.S. lawmakers face a rocky path forward as they begin negotiations over the last remaining appropriations bill for fiscal year 2026.

During the next two weeks, Congress will recraft the Department of Homeland Security bill, which includes funding for agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

While Republicans have expressed openness to some of the changes Democrats demand, they have flatly refused others, risking another partial government shutdown on Feb. 13.

“We all agree immigration policy ought to be balanced and strategic and smart, and it obviously needs to comply with the law,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Tuesday. “We’re going to have all these discussions over the next couple of weeks. We will figure out a path through this, but we have to enforce our immigration law.”

After an ICE agent fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen, during January protests in Minneapolis, Senate Democrats demanded immigration enforcement reforms in the Homeland Security bill.

As a result, the upper chamber scrapped the bill, which had already passed the House alongside five other appropriations bills. While senators approved the other five, they replaced the Homeland Security bill with a two-week stopgap, sending all six bills back to the House in one package.

The $1.2 trillion package passed the lower chamber Tuesday with bipartisan support and sent it to President Donald Trump, who signed it. But the vote also showed how deeply many House Republicans resent Democrats for strong-arming leaders into promising immigration enforcement reforms.

House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., laid out Tuesday the “common-sense” changes Democrats want to see. Aguilar said his caucus will expect no less than banning mask-wearing, requiring body-worn cameras, and requiring agents to have judicial warrants on top of immigration court warrants before detaining someone.

He also called for independent investigations into possible abuses by agents, as well as establishing clear guidelines on use of force.

“We have to make changes. We have to reform DHS,” Aguilar told reporters. “We aren’t settling for half measures.”

Johnson has said Republicans will negotiate “in good faith” with Democrats, and he agreed that some reforms, such as requiring body cameras, would improve enforcement efforts.

But he added that Republicans will “never go along” with measures like requiring agents to obtain judicial warrants or providing amnesty for noncitizens residing in the U.S. illegally.

“We have to make sure we maintain the important parameters here,” Johnson said Tuesday. “You can’t in any way lighten the enforcement requirement of federal immigration law – that’s what the American people demand and deserve. We want dangerous, illegal criminals to be sent out of the country.”

If lawmakers fail to come to an agreement by the time the funding stopgap expires, many DHS agencies will shut down, including the Coast Guard, FEMA, and the Transportation Security Administration.

ICE, however, will not shut down, given that it received a $75 billion boost in Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill, which became law in July.