House lawmakers approved legislation on Thursday that would reopen the Department of Homeland Security, but most Democrats remain opposed to ending the partial government shutdown despite a leadership shakeup at DHS and military operations against Iran.
The bill to fund DHS – including ICE, FEMA and TSA – through Sept. 30 cleared the House of Representatives in 221-207 vote, and now heads to the Senate where it needs 60 votes to pass.
Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez (D-Wash.) and Don Davis (D-NC) were the only House Democrats to vote in favor of ending the 20-day shutdown.
The bill included Democrats’ demands, such as a body camera mandate and training requirements for ICE agents.
A similar version passed the House in January. House Republican leaders, however, wanted to force another vote on the measure, given the heightened concerns over the potential for Iran and its terrorist proxies to attempt some type of attack on the homeland.
The vote also came on the same day President Trump announced he’s replacing Kristi Noem as head of DHS with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.).
“It’s not like Kristi Noem was the one who was involved in negotiating anything,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told reporters, according to Fox News, signaling that the leadership change won’t be enough. “She was a corrupt lackey. So we were dealing with the White House before, and we’re going to continue to deal with the White House at this point.”
Jeffries further described the GOP argument that DHS should be funded immediately because of the Iran conflict as “insane,” the outlet reported.
“Donald Trump launches an unauthorized war in the Middle East … He decides that he wants to spend billions of dollars to bomb Iran, rather than spend taxpayer dollars to lower the grocery bills that are crushing the American people, and then wants to use his unauthorized war as an excuse to continue spending taxpayer dollars to brutalize or kill American citizens by continuing to unleash ICE without restriction on the American people?” Jeffries said. “I think it’s ridiculous.”
The Senate also voted again Thursday on the House-passed DHS funding bill from January, but it failed to garner the 60 votes needed to pass.
“Having kept DHS shut down now for three weeks and counting, Democrats will once again leave Washington today and head to the airport, where they will walk past some of the 50,000 TSA agents who are missing part of their pay because of Senate Democrats,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said on the floor of the upper chamber.
“This is the second time in six months the Democrats have subjected thousands of workers to the pain and uncertainty of a government shutdown,” Thune fumed, noting that many of the federal employees impacted by the shutdown have “nothing to do with immigration enforcement.”
He continued, “Let’s be clear, this is not some principled stand by Democrats … it’s looking a lot like Democrats just want to keep this alive as a political issue.”
“They’re interested in politics, not policy. And public safety ends up suffering as a result of their decision to shut down the Department of Homeland Security.”
