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As a partial government shutdown blows past the one-month mark, Democrats are demanding lawmakers shrink the size of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) funding lapse — while leaving out the agency at the heart of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in their view, can stay shut down.
“We already said we’d open everything in the department except ICE, so the answer is yes,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said when asked about partial funding for DHS.
“Republicans won’t agree because they’re trying to hold the security of the country hostage.”
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Capitol Hill, left, pictured next to ICE agents, right. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images; Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
His position was echoed by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.
“We need to fund every aspect of it other than ICE. We’re going to fight on the ICE funding. I mean, they already have $75 billion,” Khanna said, noting that ICE itself already received funding through Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
In light of those appropriations, Republicans believe Democrats have assumed an unsustainable position as they continue to shoot down efforts to fund DHS in its entirety.
“They’re not interested in reopening, right? Their whole thing is: ‘Okay, we’re doing a shutdown to go out there and affect ICE and Border Patrol.’ But ICE and border patrol are the ones that are not even affected by this shutdown. They’re funded by the One Big, Beautiful Bill that passed previously,” Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., said.
“How long do I foresee Democrats lying to their base? Forever,” Mast added.
Calls to implement the partial funding stance have grown louder since the shutdown first began.
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The US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Funding for DHS originally lapsed on Feb. 14 when Democrats refused to advance spending legislation for DHS that didn’t also include a set of demands to reform ICE. Among other changes, Democrats have conditioned their support on a ban on masks for ICE agents, stiffer warrant requirements for apprehending suspects in public and a ban on roaming patrols.
Republicans have rebuffed the demands, arguing they would handcuff President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement goals.
Republicans need at least seven Democrats to reach the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster in the Senate, where they hold just 53 seats.
The standoff has overlapped with a series of domestic attacks, raising alarm among Republicans that DHS’ closure may be reducing the country’s preparedness to counter similar threats.
A vehicle-ramming at a synagogue in Michigan, a university shooting in Virginia, the detonations of explosives in New York and another shooting in Texas have left members like Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., joining calls to pass non-ICE DHS funding.
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A Brazilian national was indicted in Florida for allegedly creating a fake government agency and selling fraudulent DHS and FBI identification cards that he claimed would grant immunity from immigration enforcement. (Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
“If it takes more time to negotiate those changes to ICE, then the right thing to do is to fund the rest of DHS, TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, counterterrorism, all of that, while we continue to negotiate over ICE,” Magaziner said.
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Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he has also joined that position.
“Ready, willing, and eager to approve funding for TSA, for FEMA, and for the Coast Guard through the separate bill that we’ve offered and Republicans have rejected. There’s an easy solution here,” Blumenthal said.
