Congressional Republicans are warning Democrats that they will regret their push to defund ICE and border patrol, saying it sets a new precedent for annual spending battles that the GOP also can exploit.
The Department of Homeland Security has been shut down since Feb. 14 because of Senate Democrats’ nearly united filibuster of immigration enforcement funding.
It set a record after surpassing last fall’s 43-day government-wide shutdown that Democrats initiated over their health-care policy demands.
The hardball tactics could come back to bite Democrats in future spending negotiations.
“Congressional Democrats have done real damage to the appropriations process by repeatedly forcing government shutdowns and refusing to fund entire agencies,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, Maine Republican. “Their refusal to fund ICE and Border Patrol leaves our borders and our country less secure and sets a precedent that they may one day come to regret.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top House Democratic appropriator and architect of the idea to split up DHS funding, said the notion that it is precedent-setting is “bull——.”
“We’ve carved out stuff for food inspectors. We’ve carved out stuff for Coast Guard,” she said of past spending negotiations.
Ms. Collins’ warning to Democrats is notable, given her centrist political leanings and tendency to work across the aisle more than most in her conference.
Some of her more conservative colleagues were even more blunt.
“What the Democrats are essentially arguing, for the first time, is that you can pull out pieces of appropriations bills,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, Missouri Republican. “So to my friends on the other side, when USAID funding comes up, look out.”
“In their Trump derangement syndrome and their hatred for ICE agents, they have opened up something that we fully intend to make the most of on behalf of the American people,” he said.
Mr. Schmitt was referring to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government agency that distributes foreign aid and is loathed by Republicans.
Democrats found that to be an ironic example of how Republicans would retaliate, because the Trump administration already tried to go around Congress and defund USAID last year.
“They tried to eliminate — but for a court — eliminate all of USAID just on their own,” Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, a senior Democratic appropriator, told The Washington Times.
As to Democrats blocking annual appropriations for immigration enforcement, he noted that Republicans already funded 86% of ICE and 85% of border patrol through the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process.
“Republicans already did an end run around the appropriation process,” Mr. Hoyer said. “So am I concerned about that? Yes.”
GOP leaders reluctantly agreed to Democrats’ suggestion to split up DHS funding because they know they can increase the immigration enforcement funding in a second reconciliation package.
A Senate-passed bill fully funds eight of the 10 agencies at DHS, but includes no money for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the border patrol functions of Customs and Border Protection.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who made restoring a regular appropriations process the centerpiece of his campaign to lead Senate Republicans, said it is “regrettable” that Democrats have held the appropriations process hostage to appease “their anti-law-enforcement, open-borders, defund-the-police wing.”
“We’re stuck in a spot that’s just not good for the country, or the future of the appropriations process, or, for that matter, the future of the Senate,” the South Dakota Republican said.
The partisan sniping has gotten so bad that some Republicans say their party should consider expanding its use of the budget reconciliation process to approve mandatory appropriations when Democrats block discretionary funding for their priorities.
Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that after quickly passing a party-line bill to fund ICE and border patrol, the GOP should prepare “a standby reconciliation appropriation process.”
He said it should be ready for Republicans to trigger at the Oct. 1 start of the fiscal year “when the appropriation process breaks down because of Democrat obstructionism again.”
Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, another senior Democratic appropriator, said if his party takes back the House, they will try to move the funding Republicans approve through reconciliation back under the purview of the Appropriations Committee.
Republicans only considered using reconciliation to supplement the appropriations process after Democrats provided a multi-year funding boost for the IRS in their 2022 reconciliation law, the Inflation Reduction Act.
And Democrats only deployed their shutdown tactics after Republicans spent years doing the same, including the 2013 shutdown in which the right wing of the party unsuccessfully tried to defund Obamacare.
“I don’t know if anything’s precedent-setting anymore,” Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Washington GOP appropriator, told The Times.
He said both parties should honor bipartisan appropriations agreements “instead of taking things out one thing at a time just to use it as leverage.”
