Congress

Congress has 10 days to cut a DHS funding deal. Don’t hold your breath.

Published

5 months ago

February 4, 2026

Congress has 10 days to prevent another shutdown — this one exclusively affecting the Department of Homeland Security. There’s not much optimism about a deal.

At issue is one of the thorniest issues in national politics — federal immigration enforcement, including new guardrails for agencies and repercussions for the local jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with them.

Already, Republicans are rejecting central demands from Democrats, including tightening warrant requirements and banning federal agents from wearing masks. Democrats are pouring cold water on a GOP push to target so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned Tuesday that getting an agreement to President Donald Trump’s desk by the new Feb. 13 deadline is an “impossibility.”

“We’ve got a very short timeframe in which to do this, which I argued against,” he said, referring to his opposition to the two-week DHS punt Democrats insisted on.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, meanwhile, said Tuesday that another short-term patch was “off the table” for Democrats.

Together those comments portend a potentially lengthy shutdown that would disproportionately impact the DHS functions that don’t involve immigration enforcement, including TSA, FEMA and the Coast Guard. That’s because agencies like ICE and Border Patrol that have been at the center of the Democratic uproar received funding through the domestic policy megabill Republicans enacted in July.

That reality had a critical mass of Senate Democrats ready to swallow full-year DHS funding last month that held agency budgets flat and passed the House with only seven Democratic votes. But that plan evaporated on Jan. 24, when DHS agents killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis and sparked bipartisan calls for new strictures on the Trump administration.

Thune and other Republicans are already warning that they believe they will need to buy more time after the Feb. 13 deadline. Negotiations over an immigration enforcement deal have largely been on hold, according to several senators, as the House wrestled with the larger spending package that finally passed Tuesday.

So far, Republicans and Democrats can’t even agree on who will be doing the negotiating. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is putting the onus on Thune. But Thune and other Republicans believe any viable deal will need to be negotiated primarily by the White House while keeping congressional Republicans “engaged.”

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said Tuesday that a deal would be difficult “without Trump deciding to drag Republicans in a direction that is normally uncomfortable for them.”

“But that’s different from John Thune just declaring that he’s out,” he added. “The majority leader can’t take himself out of the negotiation.”

A lengthy DHS shutdown could be uncomfortable quickly for both parties. While ICE and Customs and Border Protection would largely have a free hand to continue immigration enforcement, the Coast Guard and TSA would lose their appropriations — potentially snarling airports and threatening paychecks for an entire military branch. The Secret Service and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency would also be affected.

Plenty of members are skeptical there will be a deal at all, given Congress’ perennial struggle to reach an agreement on anything even tangentially related to immigration.

“I have to say that I’m a little skeptical of this entire enterprise,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said. “I’m a little skeptical of the entire project here of trying to lard up an appropriations bill that funds critical agencies with a whole bunch of statutory restrictions.”

Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) said of the incipient negotiation, “I can’t say it feels like good faith.”

Democrats have outlined several key demands for any negotiations and are expected to formally present a proposal “very shortly,” according to Schumer.

But while Republicans have expressed openness to some of the Democratic proposals, such as body cameras and deescalation training, there is broad opposition to requiring immigration officers to obtain judicial warrants instead of administrative warrants before seeking apprehensions. Many, including Speaker Mike Johnson, also oppose requiring federal agents to remove masks, arguing it would be a possible safety threat.

“I can tell you that we are never going to go along with adding an entirely new layer of judicial warrants,” Johnson said Tuesday. “It is unimplementable. It cannot be done, and it should not be done. It’s not necessary.”

Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing for language cracking down on “sanctuary cities” that don’t comply with ICE and CBP to be included in any agreement that includes new restrictions on those agencies. Other Republicans are mulling trying to attach bigger immigration provisions, including increasing penalties for immigrants who cross the border illegally or re-enter the country illegally.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) used an Oval Office bill signing with Trump Tuesday to make his pitch for a sanctuary cities crackdown as part of any negotiation to extend DHS funding.

“If you want a debate on how to solve this problem, show up next week,” he said.

Trump encouraged the push: “I hope you’re going to press that very hard,” he told Graham.

But the policies Graham and other Republicans are proposing — such as imposing criminal penalties on state and local officials who “willfully interfere” with immigration enforcement — have long been a nonstarter for Democrats.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said it already would be “difficult” to get his caucus to support another funding punt, noting that roughly half of his Democratic colleagues already voted against the last spending package.

And trying to link sanctuary cities to the debate over immigration enforcement tactics, Durbin added, is “not realistic.”

“There’s so many different versions of sanctuary law in these communities and states,” he said. “What we’re talking about is funding this agency, but making sure there are reforms before funding.”

Other Senate Democrats who voted for the spending deal last week — including Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee — are already warning that Republicans shouldn’t count on their votes again for another punt.

Another senior Democratic appropriator, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, said she believed there was enough time to get a deal if negotiators were “committed.”

“But it would help if they start negotiating,” Shaheen said.

Congress

Moderates beware: Mamdani coalition portends a dramatically different Democratic Party in NYC

Published

2 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — A coalition powered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani expanded the left’s reach Tuesday, winning younger voters across racial and ethnic lines and once again upending conventional wisdom about elections in New York City.

A series of hotly contested congressional and state elections pit a slate of Mamdani-backed democratic socialists and progressives against establishment candidates who, in several cases, differed little on policy aside from U.S.-Israel relations.

The results were staggering.

Midterm election cycles in deep-blue New York City tend to be sleepy affairs. Both this year and in 2022, just over 500,000 people cast ballots, less than 20 percent of eligible voters. But turnout within a congressional district spanning Upper Manhattan and the Bronx increased by roughly 50 percent between 2022 and Tuesday, with more than 66,000 voters heading to the polls.

In another seat covering parts of Brooklyn and Queens, turnout more than doubled from 2022, though state and federal elections were held on different days that year and the seat was not competitive, which would have reduced the number of voters going to the polls.

Congressional candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America were able to replicate the mayor’s success by winning younger Latino voters in Brooklyn and a majority of Black voters in Harlem. Combined with the DSA’s base in relatively wealthy neighborhoods, the result charted the far left’s broadening appeal and a potential reorientation of the electorate that will influence races for years to come.

“This was a big wave for DSA and they did a good job capitalizing on it,” said Evan Roth Smith, a pollster with Slingshot Strategies. “The question now is: Was this a wave cycle that will abate, or is it the start of the takeover?”

Much of Mamdani’s base is concentrated in the so-called “commie-corridor,” a series of neighborhoods along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront filled with young, educated and affluent voters who’ve propelled several DSA candidates into office. They went gaga over Mamdani’s candidacy and, as Tuesday’s results show, will turn out for candidates he supports.

The area was crucial to Assemblymember Claire Valdez’s crushing 56-38 defeat of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

“The factor that felt most significant to me were all of these New Yorkers who got activated and politicized in the mayor’s race last year who were looking for the next fight,” said Andrew Epstein, a political adviser to Mamdani who worked on Valdez’ campaign. “Those people didn’t go away. And they want to keep going.”

Valdez also won several heavily Latino areas that were expected to break for her opponent.

Reynoso was born in Brooklyn to Dominican parents and just a few years ago was a City Council member representing Bushwick, a long-gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood that’s home to Latino families and young hipsters. Valdez was born in Texas, moved to New York City in 2015 and served in the state Assembly for just one term before launching her Mamdani-backed bid for retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s seat.

She ended up winning areas of Bushwick by even greater margins than the total results — in some election districts winning upwards of 80 percent of the vote.

“You don’t win the district by 35 points if you don’t have broad advantages across age and demographic groups,” said Michael Lange, an election analyst and Mamdani supporter who has tracked several contested races with extreme granularity. “Is she blowing him out of the water with Hispanic voters under 50? I see tons of evidence that the answer is yes.”

The age advantage was the common thread across several other races.

In Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, for example, younger Black voters in Harlem were key to Darializa Avila Chevalier’s win over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who had built a small political empire in the district.

While gentrifying, the neighborhood remains a seat of Black political power and is home to younger households who tend to rent. That particular demographic is a strong indicator of why Mamdani won the area in 2025, even as he lost the Black vote overall to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose support was concentrated among older Black homeowners in Brooklyn and Queens.

While Espaillat never healed a rift with the Black community in upper Manhattan opened during his election in 2016, which contributed to his weak performance, Avila Chevalier demonstrated Tuesday that a significant share of voters there were not just supportive of Mamdani the person, but of the broader political movement he’s now leading.

Overall, she edged out Espaillat with Black voters 48-46, according to an analysis from The New York Times, which charted demographic breakdowns for several contested races.

Three winning congressional candidates endorsed by Mamdani — including former city Comptroller Brad Lander in Brooklyn, who unseated incumbent Dan Goldman — share several similarities. They won younger, college-educated and wealthier voters by huge margins, in several cases by 30 points or more, and lost lower-income voters to incumbents or candidates affiliated with incumbents — a sign that the movement seeking to boost struggling New Yorkers has not won them over.

While the DSA was able to win three state races without the support of Mamdani — a testament to the organizing prowess of the left that was essential to reactivating the mayor’s coalition — there were limits to the city’s leftward shift.

Rep. Grace Meng won her reelection race, though she only vanquished challenger Chuck Park by 14 points, an uncomfortable margin for an incumbent of her stature. Park, who ran to Meng’s left, was boosted by a huge turnout in Woodside, Queens, a multiethnic neighborhood that went heavily for Mamdani in last year’s mayoral race.

Elsewhere in the Bronx, however, incumbents remained strong. Rep. Ritchie Torres handily won reelection with 72 percent of the vote, though it was a low-turnout affair more consistent with an uncompetitive midterm. Nevertheless, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries touted the results — even as he watched a series of his endorsed candidates fall to the DSA in Brooklyn, his home borough, in a preview of the intraparty battles to come.

“In some higher-income districts, there was an outsized focus on the Middle East. In other districts, for instance, in the South Bronx, Ritchie Torres ran against somebody who was heavily critical of his position on Israel, and he won by fifty points,” Jeffries told MS NOW on Wednesday.

Congress

Divisive Israel vote to be discussed on Sunday House Democrats call

Published

3 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

An anticipated vote on cutting off U.S. military aid to Israel is among the subjects House Democrats are slated to discuss on an unusual teleconference Sunday evening.

Six people granted anonymity to describe private caucus plans confirmed the member call, which has not been publicly announced. Two of them said it would involve an amendment that would block aid to Israel and other appropriations matters.

Democrats are likely to be sharply divided on an amendment drafted by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to a fiscal 2027 spending bill funding the State Department and foreign aid programs. Massie is proposing to end Israel aid and cut the overall foreign military aide program by $3.3 billion.

House Republicans have not yet announced a vote on that bill, but two other people granted anonymity to describe GOP planning said it is likely to be added to the floor schedule next week. The House Rules Committee voted last week to set up debate on Massie’s amendment.

Senior Democrats want to talk through member concerns and strategy on the Sunday call, according to one of the six people.

The call comes just days after three outspoken critics of U.S. aid to Israel swept hotly contested House primaries in New York City, ousting two incumbents.

Meredith Lee Hill and Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.

Congress

House panel subpoenas Leon Black, escalating tactics in Epstein investigation

Published

4 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Oversight Committee slapped Leon Black with two subpoenas in the middle of his transcribed interview about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein — after Black refused to answer questions about potential non-disclosure agreements he had with women tied to the late, convicted sex offender.

Oversight Committee Chair James Comer announced the issuance of the subpoenas — for the NDAs and for Black to reappear for a formal deposition July 16 — after the first hour of Black’s interview had concluded with the billionaire investor insisting he would not discuss the terms of those agreements.

Black had initially agreed to appear voluntarily, but under the terms of a deposition, his testimony will be videotaped and under oath.

“We believe that information is vital to our investigation,” Comer, a Kentucky Republican, told reporters Friday. “We want to know, was Jeffrey Epstein involved in the NDAs? … Was he involved in awarding [of] funds to the women for the NDAs? What was the reason for the NDAs?”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the panel, seconded Comer’s decision to force a deposition to compel information that he also described as central to the panel’s ongoing Epstein probe — a rare moment of bipartisanship in an investigation that has been plagued by partisan bickering.

“There’s no question that as soon as this interview started, that the witness was not going to answer critical questions,” he told reporters.

After Black had already departed from the closed-door interview, his lawyer, Susan Estrich, said that Epstein “had no involvement with any NDAs, whether they exist or not,” and said her client has never abused a woman.

“They made a premeditated political decision to serve him with subpoenas after less than an hour of questioning, and before they even asked a single question about his legitimate payments to Epstein,” she said, referring to members of the Oversight panel. “This was nothing more than a planned political stunt.”

Estrich represented the late Fox News chairman Roger Ailes when he was facing sexual misconduct accusations. Black has also battled his own allegations of sexual assault, though he has denied the accusations — along with having had knowledge of Epstein’s wrongdoing over the course of their relationship.

Several Democrats who attended the interview were aghast at Black’s lack of cooperation. Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico told reporters that more than one of Epstein’s accusers had previously accused Black of committing sexual misconduct against them, too.

“Before Mr. Black left the interview, he admitted that he lived close to Epstein,” Stansbury said. “He often dined at his house. He went over for breakfast, for happy hours, attended impromptu dinners with world leaders, with academics, with scientists.”

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) alleged that Black “gush[ed] poetically about how smart and how great Jeffrey Epstein was” and accused him of walking out on the committee.

The bipartisan desire to get more information from Black comes as the committee’s Epstein investigation is set to hit the one-year mark in July, after Oversight Committee Democrats — frustrated with the Justice Department’s refusal to release the so-called Epstein files — forced a bipartisan vote to facilitate the publication of relevant materials.

That vote jumpstarted a congressional probe that has led to interviews with more than a dozen witnesses, including ex-Attorney General Pam Bondi, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates.

Comer has also asked acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to speak with his panel in the coming weeks, after Bondi accused him of being at the tip of the spear in overseeing the eventual release of the Epstein files in compliance with a law Congress passed in December.

Members will have more to ask Blanche following the Justice Department’s admission on Thursday that the DOJ had been violating the law Congress passed last November requiring the public release of the vast majority of government records relating to Epstein.

A federal judge gave Blanche one week to release certain names and other information that DOJ initially redacted from the millions of pages of the Epstein files — or provide a more detailed explanation for withholding them.

Critics believe the department has been seeking to protect powerful people implicated in Epstein’s crimes — including potentially President Donald Trump, who has not been charged with wrongdoing and has denied misconduct.