{"id":20495,"date":"2026-03-24T21:46:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T21:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/dhs-funding-proposal-falls-flat-as-democrats-conservatives-and-trump-raise-doubts\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T21:46:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T21:46:52","slug":"dhs-funding-proposal-falls-flat-as-democrats-conservatives-and-trump-raise-doubts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/dhs-funding-proposal-falls-flat-as-democrats-conservatives-and-trump-raise-doubts\/","title":{"rendered":"DHS funding proposal falls flat as Democrats, conservatives and Trump raise doubts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Key negotiators circulated a potential deal Tuesday to end a five-week standoff<\/a> over Department of Homeland Security funding and, among other things, pay beleaguered transportation screeners as mounting security lines snarl airports.<\/p>\n

Nobody in Washington, however, seems too excited about it.<\/p>\n

The framework brokered by a handful of Senate Republicans and the White House<\/a> Monday got a cool reception from Senate Democrats, who said it does nothing to rein in immigration enforcement abuses at the center of the DHS funding impasse.<\/p>\n

Conservative Republicans pushed back on the idea that some Immigration and Customs Enforcement funds would be left out of the agreement and pursued separately under the party-line reconciliation process, calling it a capitulation to Democrats.<\/p>\n

Even President Donald Trump, who has gone back and forth on the DHS shutdown talks but hosted the White House meeting Monday evening where the latest proposal was hatched, gave the plan only a tepid endorsement in his first public comments on it Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to take a good hard look at it,\u201d he said in the Oval Office, later adding, \u201cThey are getting fairly close. But I think any deal they make, I\u2019m pretty much not happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The griping heard up and down Pennsylvania Avenue cast fresh doubt on whether Congress would be able to act this week to end the shutdown that started Feb. 14 \u2014 even as hourslong waits at some U.S. airports weighed heavily on lawmakers.<\/p>\n

The Republican proposal would forgo about $5.5 billion in funding for Enforcement and Removal Operations under ICE, in lieu of agreeing to a series of constraints Democrats want to impose on DHS enforcement personnel.<\/p>\n

Key Democrats rejected that tradeoff Tuesday. Washington Sen. Patty Murray<\/a>, the Senate\u2019s top Democratic appropriator, said the new GOP offer \u201ccontains no reforms to ICE or Border Patrol\u201d and \u201cthat\u2019s not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans had hoped to isolate the point of greatest contention, the conduct of DHS agents carrying out Trump\u2019s mass detention and deportation agenda, while funding the rest of the sprawling department. But GOP leaders said they would not put fetters on agents whose salaries were not being funded under the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the reforms are contingent on funding for ICE,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> told reporters Tuesday afternoon. \u201cSo if you’re not going to have funding, I don’t know how all of a sudden now they can demand reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

ICE received $75 billion in last summer\u2019s GOP megabill, leaving it largely immune from the funding lapse that has crippled other parts of DHS.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is that they have everybody at DHS right now doing immigration enforcement,\u201d said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy<\/a>, who is the top Democrat on the Homeland Security funding panel but not central to the negotiations.<\/p>\n

By funding other DHS agencies, Murphy added, \u201cyou’re providing money for immigration enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The qualms are not just coming from Democrats.<\/p>\n

Conservatives are strategizing behind the scenes to kill the framework because it leaves out ICE funding in the uncertain hope of passing it through reconciliation, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the private effort.<\/p>\n

Some Republicans expect their right-flank colleagues to try to lobby Trump to tank the deal or demand changes, two of the people said.<\/p>\n

A White House spokesperson gave the emerging plan only a lukewarm blessing<\/a> Tuesday before Trump made his public comments. The president made clear he remains more invested in passing a partisan elections bill, the SAVE America Act, than cutting a deal to end the DHS shutdown.<\/p>\n

The framework would pair the leftover $5.5 billion in ICE funding with some provisions of the SAVE America Act, though the strictures of the reconciliation process would severely limit the GOP\u2019s options.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to support Republicans,\u201d Trump said. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s awfully hard to get votes when you have Democrats that don\u2019t want to have voter ID, they don\u2019t want to have proof of citizenship, they don\u2019t want to do anything about men playing in women\u2019s sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultraconservatives in the House are also assembling to oppose the proposal negotiated by GOP senators, warning their leaders against going around them to pass the agreement. Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> could make such a move using fast-track procedures if he had the necessary support from a critical mass of Republicans and Democrats to vault a two-thirds-majority threshold.<\/p>\n

And there is a significant swath of the House GOP, including mainstream leadership allies, who consider the idea of not fully funding ICE a nonstarter.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer<\/a> said Democrats will offer a counterproposal to the GOP offer. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> is expected to meet with Schumer Tuesday and gather with his caucus Wednesday morning before the offer is delivered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can assure you it will contain significant reform in it,\u201d Schumer told reporters Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Murray, who has been meeting with White House officials, lamented that negotiations have been a moving target.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is awfully hard to find common ground with Republicans when it\u2019s not clear that they have common ground amongst themselves,\u201d she said Tuesday. \u201cThe only way we are going to get out of this mess is if we know that the president is on the same page as the Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top Republican senators are anxious to reach an accord to end the shutdown before the House and Senate are scheduled to adjourn later this week for a recess stretching into mid-April.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re ready to go, OK? We\u2019re ready,\u201d North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven<\/a>, a senior Republican appropriator, said Tuesday as he left Thune\u2019s office. \u201cSo the Democrats need to join us now and get it done. I mean, we’ve bent over backward negotiating with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mia McCarthy, Meredith Lee Hill and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Key negotiators circulated a potential deal Tuesday to end a five-week standoff over Department of Homeland Security funding and, among other things, pay beleaguered transportation screeners as mounting security lines snarl airports. Nobody in Washington, however, seems too excited about it. The framework brokered by a handful of Senate Republicans and the White House Monday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}