House Republicans are unsure if Democrats are negotiating in good faith on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with the chances of a partial shutdown growing larger by the day.
Congress has until the end of Feb. 13 to produce a bipartisan plan funding DHS for the remainder of the fiscal year.
A DHS funding bill will need at least some Democratic support in the Senate, where bipartisan cooperation is critical to the 60-vote threshold to advance most legislation.
But in the House, which governs by a simple majority, Republicans are balking at some of the key demands made by Democratic leaders in exchange for their support.
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“I’m surprised that they didn’t just say the quiet part out loud, that they want to abolish [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] altogether, which is what some of the members are actually saying,” Republican Study Committee Chairman August Pfluger, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital. “So I think those demands are ridiculous.”
He and other conservatives have also said they do not believe Democrats are negotiating for a legitimate compromise — a lack of trust that puts any potential deal on shaky ground with only nine days until a possible DHS shutdown.
“We had four years of anything but good faith, and they really put our country into a really bad situation,” Pfluger said.
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Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said he had similar concerns about trust when engaging with Democrats on the topic.
And Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., said, “I think it’s kind of hard to negotiate with legislative terrorists.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., rolled out a list of four key asks for the White House during a press conference on Wednesday — a ban on ICE agents wearing masks, mandatory body cameras for federal officers, requiring judicial warrants for arrests, and a ban on deporting and detaining U.S. citizens.
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While there is considerable bipartisan agreement on body-worn cameras, demands like forcing ICE agents to remove masks and getting judicial warrants have been largely criticized by Republicans.
“The ban on masks is insane. No, that’s a non-starter. This idea of this ban on deporting U.S. citizens thing, is a ruse. They’re trying to get us to admit this is happening in some type of systematic manner or something like that. Americans are getting deported out of the country, so that’s fake,” Moore said. “This is all political, and it’s all messaging on their part.”
Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, whose state was on the front lines of the recent border crisis, told Fox News Digital, “Let law enforcement do their job. They wouldn’t need to wear a mask if they weren’t getting doxxed.”
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Moore pointed out that another ask on that list, mandatory body-worn cameras for ICE agents, was part of an initial DHS funding compromise that Democrats walked away from in droves.
“That was in the bill that they don’t wanna pass — the homeland bill that we had negotiated, that was in the bill. So if they want body cams so bad, vote for the bill,” he said.
Other Republicans, like Reps. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., and Troy Downing, R-Mont., said they were not as familiar with Democrats’ demands but were more hopeful about possibly striking a deal with the other side.
“I would hope that they are [negotiating in good faith], but I’ll withhold judgment until we see a little bit more of how that goes,” Barrett said.
Downing noted, however, that Democrats did not always agree with each other, either. Jeffries notably voted against the bipartisan compromise that Schumer struck with President Donald Trump last week to reopen the federal government after the left rejected the initial deal.
“It sounds like they’re not always speaking amongst themselves, so I don’t even know how to categorize good faith, because it seems like they don’t have good faith amongst the two chambers there,” Downing said.
Democrats, meanwhile, have accused Trump of empowering ICE to abuse the law in Minneapolis, where federal agents’ killing of two U.S. citizens during demonstrations against Trump’s immigration crackdown has led to sky-high tensions.
Since the press conference, they’ve also released a list of six additional demands before they agree to a full DHS funding deal.
“Federal immigration agents cannot continue to cause chaos in our cities while using taxpayer money that should be used to make life more affordable for working families. The American people rightfully expect their elected representatives to take action to rein in ICE and ensure no more lives are lost,” Jeffries and Schumer wrote in a letter accompanying those demands.
