Border deal collapse raises pressure on DHS funding talks

Democratic appropriators say the collapse of the bipartisan border deal could pose added hurdles to the annual funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), particularly as they look to dial up pressure on Republicans.

“There are some challenges but we’re trying to address them,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas), top Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees DHS funding, told reporters on Thursday, adding that negotiators “were expecting extra money on the supplemental – it didn’t happen.” 

The annual DHS measure is one the 12 appropriations bills Congress must pass before a pair of deadlines next month to avert partial government shutdowns. The bill covers funding for DHS and its agencies, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Cuellar said that he and Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), head of the House subcommittee helping assemble the DHS funding bill, have been in contact and plan to huddle during recess next week to negotiate. 

“We just finished talking. We’re gonna talk over the weekend and talk next week,” he said. But he also acknowledged some of the challenges facing negotiators. 

“DHS is short to pay the pay raise … that’s going to be a billion dollars for the pay raise,” he said, while also noting funding for FEMA and other priorities.

“We’ve got needs for Coast Guard. We’ve got border security stuff. So, we got a little bit more money, but not as much as we were hoping.”

His comments come as various senior appropriators in both chambers have discussed the difficulty in crafting their funding bills with the added limits of a budget caps deal struck between President Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last year. 

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who heads the subcommittee working out the DHS funding bill in the upper chamber, has also argued in recent weeks that the topline that negotiators are working from for the bill could be too low without a separate deal for emergency border funds. 

“The department is way over budget, because of the high numbers of presentations they have,” he said earlier this month, adding “the supplemental is designed to help the administration afford the high costs of crossings.”

Murphy served as the chief Democratic negotiator in monthslong discussions with Republicans that produced the bipartisan border and national security supplemental package.

The bill grew out of a White House supplemental budget request that paired DHS funding with aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

Discussing some of the hurdles negotiators now face in crafting the annual DHS funding bill, Cuellar described the task as “challenging in trying to have enough money,” adding a supplemental package “would make our life a lot easier.”

But some Republicans have also sought to turn the attention back on Democrats on the issue of funding. 

Asked about Murphy’s comments last week, Sen. Katie Britt (Ala.), top Republican on the Senate subcommittee serving alongside him, pushed back.

“Let’s just rewind to the fact that President Biden, when he put forth his budget a year ago for DHS, he gave him a 1 percent cut across the board,” Britt said last week, but she added, “it’s not just having the money, it’s making sure the money is used in the right way.”

“Do you know that we have 1.3 million people in this nation that have been given due process and have final orders of removal, and we needed the administration to take it serious to actually remove those individuals that are here unlawfully,” Britt argued.

And responding to Cuellar’s comments on Friday, Britt said in a statement, “If ICE detention capacity is truly a newfound priority of theirs, we can alleviate these concerns in ongoing FY24 appropriations work.”

“Instead of Democrats sending money to NGOs that want to defund ICE, they should support robust funding for ICE detention capacity and removal operations,” she argued. 

The GOP push to fund immigration enforcement and defund immigration processing runs directly counter to the view from the left, which sees current enforcement funding as wasteful.

Immigration advocates scoffed at the idea that DHS law enforcement agencies, especially ICE, are underfunded.

“The idea that ICE is this poor, underfunded agency is simply counterfactual,” said Heidi Altman, director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center.

As appropriations talks picked up in Congress, The Washington Post and CNN reported on plans to release detainees and cut detention space if the agency’s budgetary woes aren’t resolved.

Advocates don’t see those plans as a threat, rather as a long-overdue cost-cutting and humanitarian measure.

ICE’s complaints were especially strident to advocates because the agency’s exposure to increased border apprehension numbers is less than that of CBP or USCIS and because they view ICE’s detention system as expensive and problematic.

On Friday, 50 House Democrats led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and Melanie Stansbury (N.M.) called on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to turn over a 2022 ICE memo that recommended closing or downsizing detention facilities that cost the agency $235 million a year.

The Democrats pointed out that 90 percent of detained immigrants are housed in for-profit facilities, which are “incentivized to cut costs, including on staffing and health care, to pad their profits.” 

“Further, the Fiscal Year 2023 omnibus appropriations bill that has been extended through March provides DHS with the funding to detain 34,000 individuals in civil immigration detention. Currently, DHS is detaining over 38,000 individuals, yet many of the private immigration facilities included in the memorandum hold substantially fewer people than ICE pays for,” wrote the lawmakers.

“As such, even while detaining 4,000 people over the level set by Congress, the Department is simultaneously overpaying private detention companies to provide substandard care to migrants who aren’t even housed within their facilities. This is untenable.”

ICE officials did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

As lawmakers scramble for another vehicle for Ukraine and Israel funding, members on both sides are looking for legislative solutions with border add-ons that can win bipartisan support. That includes a recent emergency funding bill unveiled Friday that proposes the return of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, among other border measures.

However, the bill already faces stiff odds in the House, amid opposition from conservatives pressing for even stricter policies. 

Such border policies are likely to run afoul with many in the Democratic caucus.

Party leadership has also doubled down on calls for House GOP leaders to instead bring up the latest national security bill that passed the Senate, minus the previous border deal, in advance of the House measure’s rollout.

—Updated Monday at 12:05 p.m.