Senate Democrats, after saying they would support such a measure, balked at supporting an appropriations bill, H.R. 7147, for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that had Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) excised.
The amendment, offered by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), would remove $5.4 billion from ICE that was included in the bill and reads in part: “Amounts made available to ‘U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—Operations and Support’ in title II of this Act shall be reduced by $5,453,706,000.”
Senate Democrats have previously expressed support for just such a measure after Republicans rejected proposals for judicial warrants for deportations, no masks for ICE officers, a use of force standard and a ban on alleged racial profiling.
On March 11, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stated on the Senate floor that if Democratic reforms then the stopgap was to just fund everything but ICE: “The bottom line is very simple. There is a simple way to get this all done. Of course, if Republicans agree to very simple, simple things to do with ICE and with Border Patrol—things that every police department does: show identity, use warrants before you bust in on somebody’s house—we could get this done and get everything funded. But the bottom line is, they have refused, probably because the rightwing doesn’t like it. So then, let’s fund everything else but ICE and Border Patrol.”
Schumer added, “We should not hold other Agencies hostage. The Republicans should not hold other Agencies hostage—millions of Americans hostage–because of their extreme positions on ICE, because they are backing up the kind of brutality that we have seen. We don’t need hostages. We don’t need any of that.”
But when it finally came up for a vote, the only Democrat to join Republicans in voting to advance the measure was Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), with the vote failing 54 to 46. Looks like Schumer and the Democrats needed their hostages after all.
As a result, while ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol remain funded from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard, all excepted workers, continue working without any pay. As a stopgap, President Donald Trump has ordered ICE officers to assist TSA officers at airports, where workers have been calling in sick and many quitting in masse due to the shutdown that is now longer than 40 days and appears cruising for a new record with spring recess looming.
60 votes are needed to advance legislation in the Senate, and so all appropriations bills including continuing resolutions, omnibus, minibus or single subject almost always must achieve a bipartisan consensus, since a party usually lacks that many votes in an election with certain exceptions.
In fact, since the advent of cloture rules more than a century ago, Republicans have never had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. But Democrats have had them several times: After the 1934, 1936, 1938, 1940, 1962, 1964, 1976 and 2008 elections.
Under those rare circumstances, with the White House and House plus the Senate supermajority, a party can just push through things like funding bills. But every other time, it takes a bipartisan consensus. And yet, despite saying they would do so, now Senate Democrats are refusing to fund DHS even without ICE funding included.
With airport lines the longest in TSA’s history, besides TSA and other DHS workers coming to work without pay, the other hostages are the American people themselves. But with Democrats continuing to lead the generic Congressional ballot polls comfortably, Senate Democrats simply feel no pressure to move from their position — no matter how much pain they cause the people they are counting on to vote for them.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government.
