Senate Democrats spent five weeks playing hardball over funding the Department of Homeland Security. Now, with ICE agents winning over airport travelers and key Republicans strategizing with the White House, it looks as if Democrats are starting to cave.
According to a new report from Punchbowl News, Democrats are signaling they might accept a deal — one that funds most of the department, but carves out ICE migrant removal operations. Republicans, rather than folding, are preparing to fund those ICE operations themselves through a party-line reconciliation bill.
For the first time in more than a month, there’s optimism that the Senate and the White House can finally find a path to reopening the Department of Homeland Security. Key Senate Republicans returned from the White House late Monday with a noticeably upbeat demeanor over the state of the talks with President Donald Trump, who had just rebuffed a GOP-backed off-ramp.
The framework under discussion would fund all of DHS except for ICE’s migrant removal operations, and could eventually include some reforms that Democrats have been demanding.
Republicans would then try to fund the rest of ICE via a party-line reconciliation bill.
Excited? It gets better. Not only would this fund all of DHS except ICE enforcement (which is fully funded through 2029 anyway), but Republicans will also use reconciliation to cover ICE operations and key pieces of the SAVE America Act.
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Yes, the SAVE America Act. We may have something happen with that after all.
GOP leaders would also try to use reconciliation to enact elements of the SAVE America Act, which mandates photo IDs and citizenship verification for federal elections. Trump has called this bill his top legislative priority.
This framework is similar to the outlines of an agreement that Senate Majority Leader John Thune discussed with Trump on Sunday — a strategy that the president rejected. Trump has insisted on tying the SAVE America Act to DHS funding, complicating matters even further. Thune said this was “not realistic.”
It’s too early to say whether this DHS framework will satisfy Senate Democrats. There are several key details that still need to be ironed out. But many Democrats pointed to what they see as a sense of urgency to get something done, especially as nightmarish TSA security lines cause chaos for millions of air travellers.
Politico similarly reports that the reconciliation bill “would be limited to ICE enforcement operations and — in a crucial concession to the president — portions of the SAVE America Act.”
Trump agreed in the meeting to back off his demand to link the bills on the condition that SAVE provisions become part of the reconciliation push, two people granted anonymity to describe the meeting told POLITICO.
Not much of the elections bill now on the Senate floor would comply with strict budget rules, but two people tell POLITICO that GOP senators are looking at providing federal funding to incentivize states to adopt voter ID requirements and other features of the bill.
So it looks as if we have some progress here.
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