WASHINGTON — The House Thursday passed four appropriations bills to fund the government and avert a partial shutdown, but Democrats largely objected to spending on the Department of Homeland Security amid aggressive immigration enforcement in communities across the country.
Democrats have pushed for tougher oversight of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. In addition, members of the progressive wing of the caucus vowed to not approve any funding for DHS after federal immigration agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis earlier this month.
The 37-year-old mother’s death led to massive community protests and thousands of ICE agents have aggressively descended into Minnesota.
“(Homeland Security Secretary) Kristi Noem and ICE are out of control,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement. “Taxpayer dollars are being misused to brutalize U.S. citizens, including the tragic killing of Renee Nicole Good. This extremism must end.”
The four bills — Defense; Homeland Security; Labor, Health and Human Services and Education; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development — are the last remaining appropriations bills needed to avoid a partial government shutdown by Jan. 30.
The Homeland Security funding bill passed 220-207. The remaining bills passed 341-88.
Democrats who joined Republicans in voting for the Homeland Security bill included Reps. Jared Gold of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state, Tom Suozzi of New York, Don Davis of North Carolina, Laura Gillen of New York and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas.
Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky voted against the DHS funding bill.
Separately, GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx, chairwoman of the Rules Committee, added a provision to repeal a law that allows members of the U.S. Senate to sue for up to half a million dollars if their phone records were obtained by special counsel Jack Smith during his investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. In a rare move, the provision passed unanimously.
Smith was also on Capitol Hill Thursday to testify about his investigation before lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The Senate will take up the appropriations bills when senators return from recess next week.
What does the Homeland Security bill include?
The Homeland Security bill provides $64.4 billion in funding for fiscal year 2026. It cuts funding for Customs and Border Protection by $1.3 billion, and maintains flat funding for ICE at $10 billion.
The bill attempts to put guardrails around immigration enforcement by allocating $20 million for body cameras for ICE and CBP officers.
It also requires DHS to provide monthly updates on how the agency is spending the $190 billion it received from the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the president’s signature tax and spending cuts package signed into law last summer.
The bill also restricts ICE to spending only $3.8 billion of its fiscal budget on detention. However, the agency will still be able to pull $75 billion from OBBBA, including for detention.
Most Dems say they can’t back any ICE funding
During Thursday’s debate of the bill, Republicans supported the Homeland Security bill, and argued that it contains other agencies beside immigration enforcement.
But a majority of Democrats said they could not vote to approve the agency’s funding because of ICE’s actions.
“I think we should look at the bill in its totality,” GOP Appropriations Chair Tom Cole of Oklahoma said. “Encouraging people to believe we have massive bad actors in a particular agency… comparing law enforcement officers to the Gestapo or Nazis, that’s not true. The right thing to do is to fund the people who protect America.”
Foxx criticized Democrats for their concerns over ICE enforcement tactics. On the House floor, she defended the agency, arguing that “ICE agents are arresting some of the worst criminals imaginable.”
“The issue is that ICE is terrorizing communities and attacking people, including U.S. citizens,” countered the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. “This is an out-of-control agency at war with communities across the country and they don’t give a damn that you are a U.S. citizen.”
The top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said he could not support voting for the bill because the Trump administration has weaponized the agency and “DHS has strayed from its core mission.”
“Republicans in control of Congress, however, are conducting zero oversight and do nothing but send blank check after blank check to DHS,” he said in a statement. “I have consistently supported the DHS workforce over the past two decades and continue to do so, but I cannot – in good conscience – vote to send another dime to CBP and ICE as they terrorize our communities and sully the constitution.”
Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said she will vote against the bill, even though she is proud of several provisions, such as the increase to Federal Emergency Management Agency funding and a pay raise for air traffic controllers.
But, she said, “It is impossible to ignore the impact ICE has had.”
“ICE is an agency that has shown itself to be lawless,” she said.
Republicans tout body camera provision
GOP Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, the chair of the panel that deals with funding for Homeland Security, defended the funding bill, and noted that it provides immigration officers with body cameras. He said funds are also provided in the measure for the Coast Guard and agencies dealing with cybersecurity.
Cuellar of Texas, the top Democrat on that same panel, acknowledged that “this bill is not perfect.”
“It’s better than the alternative, leaving the department with a blank check,” he said. “This bill flat funds ICE but at the same time, we strengthen oversight of ICE.”
Minnesota Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum said the ICE enforcement in Minnesota and across the country is one of the “worst cases of civil rights violations by the federal government in recent history.”
“Minnesotans are being racially profiled on a mass scale, assaulted on our streets, kidnapped from our communities,” she said.
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