Is Now the Time to Demand a Clawback of the ICE BBB Slush Fund?

Democrats in the Senate are about to vote on a 6-bill funding package that includes DHS, but ICE/CBP would stay open during a shutdown. So what do we do?

As you probably know by now, a lot of the government is set to shut down on January 31st without funding, and at least 7 democrats are needed to advance the package in the Senate. It may be more if a couple of republicans are no votes.

The 6 bills that have been lumped together to vote on include T-HUD, SFOP’s (State and Foreign Operations), Labor-HHS-Ed, FSGG (General Government like DC and the Executive Office of the President, and the courts), Defense, and DHS.

However, ICE - which is part of DHS - receives supplemental funds from the Big Ugly Bill, and those funds are available during a shutdown. So keep that in mind. If the government shuts down, ICE continues to be fully funded and unrestricted - detention centers, operations, flights, payroll, all of it. CBP is also funded during a shutdown by the BBB with a ~$60B slush fund.

Right now, Democrats are circling around 5 demands to reform ICE/CBP that would be needed to secure their votes for cloture on this funding package. There’s not a final list yet, but most seem to agree on these 5. According to Senator Chris Murphy, who appeared with Greg Sargent on an episode of The Daily Blast, those five demands include:

1. DHS must cooperate with State investigations

2. Customs and Border Protection stays at the border

3. Judicial warrants required for arrest

4. Officer identification and body worn cameras

5. Agents out of churches and schools

When discussing these five demands, Senator Murphy said “If we do not fight right now, I think it could result in a massive withdrawal from participation in politics altogether, and that’s how democracy dies… We have to show, as the primary opposition party, that we are willing to stand up and fight for the country.” So also keep that in mind. One of our most progressive Senators says these demands are a fight we should be willing to take on.

But many people have asked me why one of the demands isn’t that we rescind the ~$135B ICE/CBP slush fund from the Big Ugly Bill.

As of last week, the consensus was that clawing back those funds would be a non-starter for Republicans, and would lead to a shut down of those agencies I mentioned. The problem with that plan is that we would risk SSI payments which are set to end April 1st, it would halt new NIH grants and pause new clinical trials, Section 8 would be in danger, annual Head Start grants would not go out, TSA wouldn’t be paid, likely leading to airports shutting down. All while ICE/CBP stay funded and operational.

However, two things:

First, a lot has changed in the last 48-72 hours. The republicans have blinked. Trump has sent Gregory Bovino packing after a productive call with Governor Tim Walz, replacing him with Border Czar Tom Homan. Noem and Lewandowski spent two hours in the Oval Office Sunday night when the decision was made to swap out CBP leadership. And multiple republicans and right wing pundits - from Senator Curtis of Utah to Governor Gregg Abbott spoke out against what ICE is doing. Tim Pool called Trump weak and said “I don’t see him winning this one.” Mike Pence called for an independent investigation into the murder of Alex Pretti. Trump Administration officials were upset with Bovino’s and Noem’s blatant lies. Even the New York Post is calling Noem “ICED BARBIE”.

I haven’t seen this level of criticism from the right since the days following January 6th. Even moderate democrats who usually vote for funding are either regretting their vote in the House (Tom Suozzi), or vowing to block funding in the Senate (Cortez Masto, Rosen), with some even calling for the impeachment of Kristi Noem.

With this dramatic fallout, the landscape has changed considerably since last week when we thought that demanding a recission of the ~$135B Big Ugly ICE/CBP slush fund was a non-starter.

Second, democrats will likely demand the DHS funding be pulled out as a separate bill. That would require the rest of the bills to go back to the House, and If republicans refuse to do that, then the broader shutdown of the government would be on republicans.

Senator Murphy says of the broader defunding of ICE “I think the fight is in the Senate right now. I mean, we have real power. We can decide - not to shut down the entirety of these operations - because as you know, even if the DHS doesn’t have appropriations, they still have $70B dollars left over from the reconciliation bill (BBB). But it is not easy for them to transfer over all their operations from regular budgetary appropriations to money from the Big Beautiful Bill. It would slow the illegality down, but I think we should just focus on this legislative moment in which we hold power, we can constrain their illegality. That’s probably the most important thing we can show people. That we’re not willing to back down, and that we aren’t powerless.”

However, I’ve spoken to some who say that a few Democrats might be considering a demand to rescind at least some of that ICE funding from the BBB in addition to the restrictions listed above. But consider this: republicans won’t agree to fully defund, and we can’t make demands for broad reforms without having the majority in at least one of the houses of Congress.

Personally, I think it’s worth a shot to try and claw back some of that ICE/CBP BBB funding. Go big or go home, right? And since we have republicans on the ropes and they’re especially vulnerable right now, we might be able to get it done. But I’m not going to fault democrats if we are unable to rescind that slush fund and end up with only restrictions like the ones Senator Murphy discussed. I’d rather have some guardrails in place than a broader shutdown that endangers some of the most vulnerable among us with zero restrictions on fully-funded ICE/CBP operations.

~AG

Photo by Gabriele Holtermann