The News
Shutdowns used to be clear political losers. Ahead of Saturday’s scheduled Department of Homeland Security shutdown, Republicans aren’t quite sure that rule holds.
They think the Trump administration did everything necessary to show it was listening, and making big changes to its harsh immigration enforcement, after federal agents killed two US citizens in Minneapolis. Trump’s aides are trading offers for further guardrails on that enforcement with Democrats.
But Republicans’ hopes that those changes might get at least a stopgap DHS funding bill through the Senate got dashed on Thursday. Democrats seem to feel zero political pressure to relent on their big demands for changes at Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Patrol.
Which leaves the GOP in a unique position, heading towards its third full or partial federal shutdown in five months. It’s a situation President Donald Trump has made clear he wants to avoid, and one that his party has taken real steps to remedy.
With public polls showing widespread worry that ICE and CBP have overreached, however, some Republicans conceded they risked being politically outflanked by Democrats.
“This is all about the midterms. That’s all it is,” Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., told Semafor. “The messaging of this, Democrats are really good at that. They really are. And they are really good at using stuff like this to be able to maneuver things to their political advantage. That’s what all this is about.”
He said Republicans have a strong record to run on, so “how can we possibly be worried about losing the midterms? We message bad.”
White House border czar Tom Homan announced early Thursday that the administration’s immigration enforcement surge is ending in Minnesota, satisfying a key condition of Democrats who have resisted DHS funding. Yet all Senate Democrats but one later voted against funding DHS past Friday, even as White House officials and Democratic staff traded offers.
Democrats won’t even agree to a short spending bill to give negotiators space to finish the deal. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., offered a two-week patch for DHS on Thursday afternoon; Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., objected.
Republicans said Democrats had made a mistake by setting up a shutdown and touting the Trump administration’s exit from Minnesota, but it’s not clear who will pay the political price.
“I don’t know why they don’t claim that as victory. I don’t know, it’s hard to get inside their mind,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, of Democrats. “It’s a dark, scary place.”
While airport security and other less politically polarizing DHS functions would eventually suffer under an agency shutdown, immigration enforcement won’t. The Trump administration got all the money it needs to continue working as part of last year’s tax law.
Still, Democrats aren’t budging.
“It’s not enough at this point,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., told Semafor of the Trump administration’s moves. Trump “knows he’s got a problem and he’s trying to slink out; but ICE will just do the same thing in another state, another city. They need basic reforms. And they don’t want to do it.”
Once the shutdown sets in on Saturday morning, it could be quite challenging to end.
In this article:
Know More
And enforcement negotiations aren’t happening in a vacuum, which makes everything that much more challenging.
When Senate Democrats gathered on Thursday to discuss the negotiations over ICE and CBP as well as funding the government, another topic entirely “dominated” the room, said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.: The Justice Department’s attempt to indict Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and four House Democrats for making a video that reminded troops they can disobey unlawful orders.
“Things have reached a very, very tough place in a negotiation,” Kaine said. “This is a negotiation between Democrats in the White House, and the White House is on a campaign to indict Democratic senators and members of Congress for innocuous, lawful statements they make.”
Funding deadlines and harried negotiations are nothing new on Capitol Hill. But this isn’t a traditional negotiation anymore – and maybe it never will be.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Trump agreed to prevent a broader shutdown two weeks ago, but there will be no sequel to that drama. Schumer is supposed to be talking to Trump, but they haven’t talked yet, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The New Yorker told Semafor that “the president hasn’t been serious so far”; Trump said Thursday that Democrats “want our law enforcement to be totally vulnerable.”
Meanwhile, the White House is seeking to refocus the debate on the services lost during what could be a weeks-long DHS shutdown, with employees forced to work without pay.
“This is a Democrat-driven shutdown that is caused by their intransigence and desire to use government funding for services all Americans rely on as a hostage in order to achieve unrelated political goals,” a White House official said on Thursday. The administration “will not be held hostage on an issue that the President was elected on.”
Democrats are preparing to respond to Republicans’ latest offer over the weekend, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Senators are now scattered across the world for a scheduled recess, and Majority Leader John Thune said he would call them back in the event of a deal. He said there was space for a deal but acknowledged “we’re not close.”
Room for Disagreement
Democrats privately see roughly half their caucus as unable to vote for any ICE funding at this point. Lots of progressives want massive change that Republicans say they will not be able to accept.
Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., said she was “very glad” federal agents are leaving her state but that they’d left it “a mess, and it’s not going to just go away because they leave.”
“Anything short of tearing down all of ICE activities to the studs and rebuilding, it is unacceptable. We can’t have secret police in our nation,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.
Burgess’s view
Democrats are making the same bet they made last fall: Shutdowns are bad — but also focus the public on minority-party priorities better than any other move they can make.
They’ve tried floor speeches, press conferences, and all the traditional means of raising public attention. They haven’t paid politically yet for forcing shutdowns.
Republicans are extraordinarily frustrated with Schumer, seeing him as unwilling to try to get a deal and scared of his base. But Schumer now sees the real possibility of taking the Senate majority and having leverage to take on Trump.
And he said his caucus has his back: “The Republicans, I think they were surprised, until yesterday that we would have a strong unified vote.”
Notable
- The leaders of ICE and CBP testified in the Senate earlier Thursday, and NPR had full coverage.
Shelby Talcott contributed.