The House speaker said Democrats’ demands to reform ICE were “insane” and threw cold water on the idea of separating some immigration enforcement activities from a broader homeland security funding bill.
WASHINGTON (CN) – House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed the door Wednesday on a potential deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security without budget approvals for some immigration enforcement activities, accusing Democrats of trying to score political points against President Donald Trump.
The comments from top House Republicans come after a proposal backed by Senate Republicans to reopen the agency faltered amid strong support from lawmakers and even the president, who expressed skepticism about the potential compromise.
“This is common sense versus insanity,” Johnson told reporters during a press conference Wednesday morning. “It’s crazy. I don’t know another word to describe it. They’re putting everyone at risk — all this discomfort and all this difficulty for their political skin.”
Members of Congress this week moved toward a path forward on DHS funding as the agency’s appropriations shutdown entered its fifth week. The budget shortfall has been felt most severely by the Transportation Security Administration, where staff shortages have led to chaotic scenes at airports across the country. About 450 TSA agents have left the agency so far.
Democrats for weeks have championed a DHS funding bill that cuts spending on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrest and deportation operations, a gambit intended to buy time to negotiate a series of reforms to the agency’s practices.
This week, the Senate Republican leadership presented a similar plan – but they were met with a lukewarm reception from their colleagues, Democrats and Trump himself.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he was “very unhappy” with the proposal, adding that he thought congressional negotiators were getting “pretty close” but he didn’t want to make any commitments until he saw a deal.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said Democrats plan to send the White House a counteroffer to the Republican-led compromise.
Johnson said Wednesday morning that there was discussion in the House of Representatives about the proposal to separate ICE funding from a broader DHS funding bill, but argued that Congress has always voted to fund the agency as a whole.
“There is a clear reason for this, it is very important,” said the Speaker of the House. “I don’t think we should share it.”
Asked whether the president should be more directly involved in the negotiations, Johnson claimed that Trump had been involved and that his comments at the White House on Tuesday reflected that he was “a little skeptical or cynical” about reaching a deal.
“He wants Congress to do its heavy lifting,” the top House Republican said. “We’ve done it — the Republicans have done it, but the Democrats are refusing to go along with it.”
And Johnson criticized Democrats for “playing games” with the federal workforce. “Why are they doing this?” he said. “Because they’re afraid of their radical base. Boom. That’s it.”
In a Tuesday post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump appeared to move further away from the compromise. “Democrats do not want to make any deal unless Amnesty and Citizenship are granted to millions of Criminals who have entered our country illegally, many of whom have been convicted of serious crimes,” the president wrote.
Department of Homeland Security it has been closed since last monthafter Democrats refused to fund the agency unless Republicans agreed to a list of reforms aimed at reining in what many lawmakers have described as an out-of-control immigration enforcement apparatus.
Federal agents from ICE and the Border Patrol in January shot and killed two U.S. citizens during the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign in Minneapolis. DHS and the White House initially characterized both victims as “domestic terrorists” intent on harming law enforcement, but have long since abandoned that characterization.
Democrats, meanwhile, have demanded that any legislation funding DHS include language barring federal agents from wearing masks in public and preventing them from carrying out immigration enforcement in “sensitive” areas such as schools and hospitals. They have also said the agency should abandon guidelines that allow federal agents to forcefully enter homes without a signed court warrant.
Republicans could move to fund ICE through a process known as budget reconciliation, which would allow them to pass spending legislation without Democratic support.
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