The Trump White House on Monday evening sent a counterproposal to Democrats in response to the sticking points congressional Democrats laid out last week in a public letter and legislative text, outlining their priorities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reforms in the wake of two recent killings of U.S. citizens by ICE agents.
Democrats are not impressed.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) put out a joint statement Monday night, immediately slamming the Republican counterproposal, saying it “included neither details nor legislative text.”
“The initial GOP response is both incomplete and insufficient in terms of addressing the concerns Americans have about ICE’s lawless conduct. Democrats await additional detail and text,” the two Democratic leaders said.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), ranking member for the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, also chimed in on Tuesday, telling reporters that Republicans “haven’t given us any meaningful answer, response.”
“We have to have some urgency about the fact that ICE is brutalizing communities, killing U.S. citizens, tear-gassing neighborhoods,” Murphy said.
“We want accountability,” he continued. “There’s a bunch of different ways to get there but they have not given us any language. They’ve sent us a bunch of talking points. It appears that they are just stalling for time, maybe hoping that the public moves on to something else. That’s not gonna happen.”
Though the details of the GOP counterproposal are not public, Republicans in the White House and Congress have already publicly shut down some of Democrats’ priorities.
Some in the Trump administration reportedly said the Democratic demand for federal law enforcement officials to obtain a judicial warrant before entering private property is a “complete nonstarter for the White House.” Many congressional Republicans have also publicly pushed back on that particular request.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has also pushed back on Democrats’ interest in barring ICE agents from wearing masks. The Speaker repeatedly said he supports ICE agents wearing masks, claiming they “are being doxxed and targeted” and they need the masks “to protect their own identities and protect their own families.”
Other Democrats agree with their leaderships’ sentiment.
“Looks like Republicans in the White House are not serious about making meaningful reforms to the lawless ICE operations,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told reporters on Tuesday. “They’ve said they don’t support a mechanism for independent investigations. They don’t want to change the use of force policies. So, essentially, they like the status quo.”
“They’ve already rejected pieces of it, so it’s a very bad sign,” Van Hollen continued. “Apparently, they wanna allow ICE to continue to engage in lawless activities with impunity.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) also said based on what he has seen, the White House counterproposal is filled with “non-starters.”
“They are failing on the key protections that Americans are demanding and that we’re articulating,” Blumenthal said, talking to a group of reporters in the Senate basement. “I see no sign that they are willing to accept the core protections: judicial warrants, body cameras, a right of action against ICE agents who break the law, basic accountability, a code of conduct that applies to use of force…”
Despite Democratic lawmakers’ public disapproval of the so-called GOP counterproposal, some said they are still holding out hope for a possible deal.
“There’s absolutely room for a deal,” Murphy told reporters when asked about the possibility. “We could get this deal done if Republicans were committed to it but right now they don’t appear to be as committed as Democrats to getting a deal.”
Congress has until Feb. 13 to renew the current continuing resolution (CR) covering DHS or face a DHS-specific partial shutdown. A DHS shutdown would include a funding lapse not just for ICE and CBP but for departments like TSA, FEMA and the Coast Guard. In fact, a partial shutdown would mainly impact those other departments as ICE and CBP already have a separate pool of funding they can draw on that was allocated by 2025’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said on Tuesday he prefers a four-week funding patch for DHS while negotiations continue, according to Punchbowl.
But most Democrats say unless they are seeing meaningful negotiations around the reforms they are demanding they would not vote to pass another CR. Some, including Van Hollen and House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), are discussing the possibility of breaking out parts of the DHS bill — likely everything but ICE and CBP — and funding them while negotiations on ICE and CBP continue.
“If any part of DHS shuts down, it is because Republicans have failed to agree to basic protections of rights and liberties against the brutality and lawlessness that we are seeing in neighborhoods all across the United States,” Blumenthal told reporters in the Senate basement. “It’s not just Minneapolis. We are all Minneapolis. We’re in a defining moment. It’s a moral moment.”
