Senate passes more spending bills, but Homeland Security dispute looms

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is halfway home in approving government funding for the current budget year that began Oct. 1 after the Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a three-bill package.

Now comes the hard part. Lawmakers still must negotiate a spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security amid soaring tensions on Capitol Hill after the shooting of a Minnesota woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

Lawmakers are working to complete passage of all 12 annual spending bills before Jan. 30, the deadline set in a funding patch that ended a 43-day government shutdown in November. With the Senate’s action on Thursday, six of those bills have now passed through both chambers of Congress. The measure before the Senate passed by a broadly bipartisan vote of 82-15. It now goes to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.

That recent success would greatly reduce the impact of a shutdown, in the unlikely event that there is one at the end of January, since lawmakers have now provided full-year funding for such agencies as the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Interior and Justice.

Lawmakers from both parties are determined to prevent another lapse in funding for the remaining agencies. The House’s approval of a separate two-bill package this week nudges them closer to getting all 12 done in the next two weeks.

“Our goal, Mr. President is to get all of these bills signed into law. No continuing resolutions that lock in previous priorities and don’t reflect today’s realities,” said Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “No more disastrous government shutdowns that are totally unnecessary and so harmful.”

ICE shooting inflames debate on funding

The biggest hurdle ahead is the funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. The plan was to bring that bill before the House this week, but Rep. Tom Cole, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the decision was made to pull the bill and “buy some time” as lawmakers respond to the Minneapolis shooting.

Democrats are seeking what Rep. Rosa DeLauro called “guardrails” that would come with funding for ICE.

“We can’t deal with the lawlessness and terrorizing of communities,” said DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “We’re going back and forth with offers, and that’s where we are.”

Trump’s deportation crackdown, focused on cities in Democratic-leaning states, has incensed many House Democrats who demand a strong legislative response. Last week, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Renee Good in a shooting that federal officials said was an act of self-defense but that the mayor described as reckless and unnecessary.

Some 70 Democrats have signed onto an effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Others are seeking specific changes to how the agency operates, such as requiring ICE agents to wear body cameras.

“There are a variety of different things that can be done that we have put on the table and will continue to put on the table to get ICE under control so that they are actually conducting themselves like every other law enforcement agency in the country, as opposed to operating as if they’re above the law, somehow thinking they’ve got absolute immunity,” said Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, which includes nearly 100 Democratic members, formally announced opposition to any funding to immigration enforcement agencies within the Department of Homeland Security “unless there are meaningful and significant reforms to immigration enforcement practices.”

Looking for a solution

Cole said any changes to the Homeland Security funding bill would need sign-on from the White House. He said one possible answer would be to let Democrats have a separate vote on the Homeland Security bill. If passed, it would then be combined with some other spending bills for transmittal to the Senate. Republicans used a similar procedural tactic to get a previous spending package over the finish line in the House.

The options for Democrats on Homeland Security are all rather bleak. If Congress passes a continuing resolution to fund the agency at current levels, that gives the Trump administration more discretion to spend the money as it wants.

Meanwhile, any vote to eliminate funding for ICE won’t stop massive sums from flowing to the agency because Trump’s tax cut and border security bill, passed last summer, injects roughly $170 billion into immigration enforcement over the next four years.

Also, any vote to eliminate funding could put some Democrats in tough reelection battles in a difficult position this fall as Republicans accuse them of insufficiently supporting law enforcement.