House Democrats plan to vote against a negotiated funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday to protest Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s aggressive actions against U.S. citizens in Minneapolis and other cities.
Thousands of ICE agents have been sent to Minnesota since December as part of a crackdown that DHS has described as the largest immigration enforcement effort in the agency’s history. An ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good this month, prompting mass demonstrations in the Twin Cities. A week later, another ICE officer shot an undocumented Venezuelan man in the leg during an arrest. ICE also began an operation in Maine on Wednesday.
ICE agents have increased their presence across the country over the past year, which President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have said is necessary to deport undocumented immigrants with criminal records. But agents have been taped on camera aggressively detaining individuals, including many U.S. citizens or undocumented immigrants without violent criminal records.
House Democrats were initially poised to support the DHS funding bill because congressional appropriators worked in a bipartisan manner to cobble together the dozen individual pieces of spending legislation necessary to pass before the Jan. 30 deadline to fund the government and prevent another shutdown. But Good’s death incensed many Democrats and became a red line for the caucus, forcing Republican leaders to delay the measure’s consideration and put the bill on the floor for a stand-alone vote.
Officials from the White House and Homeland Security did not immediately return a request for comment on the Democrats’ decision.
Bipartisan members of the House and Senate appropriations committees negotiated the bill as part of a broader package of spending legislation before Democratic opposition became apparent. The bill would allocate $64.4 billion to Homeland Security, including $10 billion for ICE — on par with existing funding levels — and fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, and Customs and Border Protection.
It would reduce funding for ICE’s enforcement and removal operations by $115 million, reduce the number of detention beds by 5,500, fund body cameras for agents, and reduce funding for Border Patrol. It does not include other changes Democrats pushed for, including prohibitions on ICE agents shooting at moving vehicles or detaining U.S. citizens.
During a Democratic caucus meeting Wednesday morning, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) and his lieutenants announced they would vote against the bill because, they said, ICE is running rampant across the country and the proposal does not include any significant steps to rein in agents.
“These reforms aren’t enough. [ICE’s] lawlessness has to stop. And they’re only doing this because they can. They’re only doing this because the president of the United States wants to use them to terrorize communities,” Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (Calif.) told reporters Wednesday.
Democrats will introduce several amendments to the bill during a GOP-led House Rules Committee meeting Wednesday, their final hope to change the measure enough to back it. The amendments would block ICE agents from detaining and deporting U.S. citizens and bar agents from covering their faces during enforcement operations. It isn’t clear whether Republicans will vote against those proposals in the committee.
“This is a time when so many people across the country, in every district, are saying, ‘What the hell is going on here?’” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.), who introduced an amendment in the Rules Committee to bar ICE from using federal money to detain and deport U.S. citizens. “We’re just at this place where it is so serious. Where the First Amendment rights, Fourth Amendment rights, and Fifth Amendment rights are being so clearly violated every day — and that’s for U.S. citizens. Imagine what’s happening to people who are not U.S. citizens.”
Republicans are aware they cannot rely on Democratic support to pass the legislation, and leaders have implored that all GOP lawmakers be present for Thursday’s vote to ensure its passage. If every member of the House is present and voting, Republicans can only afford to lose two votes to send the last of 12 appropriation bills to the Senate if all Democrats oppose it.
The House is expected to hold separate votes on the DHS funding bill and a three-bill package of the other remaining appropriations bills on Thursday. Government funding expires on Jan. 30, and without an appropriations bill or a funding extension known as a continuing resolution, any agency that hasn’t had a spending bill enacted into law would shut down.
Besides the outrage from Good’s death, Democrats are also feeling pressure from their electoral base to fight back against the Trump administration more broadly on immigration. Some lawmakers have begun to resurrect a demand leaders in the party have tried to tamp down for years: “Abolish ICE.” The slogan became a rallying cry during Trump’s first term, and many strategists say it ultimately cost the Democratic Party in subsequent elections as voters considered Republicans tougher on crime and border security.
“Hey Democrats, if you have a problem with ICE — which many of them do, irrationally — you should not take down the appropriations bill because there are all these other areas of Homeland Security that are essential,” said Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), who noted that not funding DHS would impact preparations for America’s 250th celebration and the World Cup. “This is not a game.”
Notably, House Democratic leaders are not whipping lawmakers to vote against the legislation, though most are expected to join them in opposing it. Several moderate Democrats who represent swing districts are weighing whether to support to bill rather than be targeted for voting against the border security agency.
Others, including Rep. Henry Cuellar (D., Texas), who crafted the bill, argue that Republicans already locked in the bulk of DHS funding for ICE through their massive tax and immigration law, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” That measure sent $75 billion for immigration enforcement to ICE, money which would continue uninterrupted even if the annual spending bill doesn’t pass.
The top Democrats on the House and Senate appropriations committees, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) have also argued that denying funding for the agency would impact other key government services, such as TSA and FEMA, and that a short-term funding law would give the Trump administration wider latitude to make spending decisions at DHS.
Aguilar said that the caucus is aware of those risks, but they will be voting against the package without “substantive” changes.
“It’s unfortunate that the behavior of ICE is jeopardizing the Homeland Security bill,” he said.
