Debates over how to handle the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have temporarily frozen plans to pass funding for the Department of Homeland Security, with leadership pushing a lofty goal to include it in contentious legislation next week.
The House plans to vote on a two-bill “minibus” this week, which originally was set to include a third bill funding the DHS. But an uproar over an ICE-involved shooting that killed a U.S. citizen, Renee Good, led to Democratic appropriators asking to remove the DHS funding bill from this week’s legislation as they chart a path forward.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) said Monday that he is not sure if his Democratic colleagues will push to rescind funding for ICE in the wake of the shooting. Instead, he said, “Both of my colleagues felt it would not be good to attach it this week.”
“We’re still talking through how we can get it, cause we all want to get all 12 bills done,” Cole said, adding that the discourse is “simply because of the political situation.”
“It’s really more political calculation than it is some vast difference over policy or funding,” the chairman added.
Democrats eye response to ICE shooting in appropriations
House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) would not go into details on Monday night as to what is next for the DHS appropriations bill, but she said that “we’ve got to see what the guardrails are” when it comes to ICE funding.
“This is an out-of-control process, a lawless process that this administration continues to be engaged in,” DeLauro said. “How do we try to move it forward?”
Some Democrats in both chambers have called on Democratic appropriators to use the process to place restrictions on the agency, as many are outraged at the way the Trump administration has been exercising its immigration and deportation policies.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who sits on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, said “no more money for DHS without accountability” on Monday.
“I think it is reasonable for Democrats speaking on behalf of the majority of the American public who don’t approve of what ICE is doing to say, ‘If you want to fund the Department of Homeland Security, I want to fund a Department of Homeland Security that is operating in a safe and legal manner,’” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said on Sunday in an appearance on Meet the Press.
With a funding deadline of Jan. 30 approaching, eyes are on whether Democrats will use the Minnesota shooting as a pathway into another government shutdown — much like how healthcare was used to try to force Republicans to come to the table on extending Obamacare COVID-19-era subsidies.
Democratic leaders have been vocal that they did not cause the record-breaking, 43-day shutdown, and appropriators on both sides of the aisle have said they want to avoid a shutdown at all costs.
But Democratic cries for freezing DHS funds could put the party in a bind. Despite having a strong message on healthcare, Democrats have historically not led the way in messaging on immigration, as proved by losses in the 2024 election.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Monday that Democrats will not help Republicans push their bill over the finish line.
“The votes clearly do not exist for Republicans to move the Homeland Security appropriations bill, which is why they pulled it from the House floor this week,” Jeffries said.
“They can decide to take this ‘my way or the highway’ approach, and we saw where that got them over the last few months, nowhere — they’re in deep trouble, politically and legislatively,” Jeffries added. “Or they can actually work with House Democratic appropriators to make sure that ICE’s out-of-control behavior is reined in.”
When asked about specifics that Democrats were looking at, Jeffries said there are “commonsense measures” that need to be put in place so ICE will conduct itself “in a manner that is at least consistent with every other law enforcement agency in the United States of America.”
Delays in DHS funding could affect Republicans’ goal to avoid CR and shutdown
If the delay of the DHS bill goes any longer, that could put Congress in a bind. The Senate is in recess all next week, with the House in recess the final week of January leading up to the deadline. Cole did not commit to a plan when asked if DHS funding may need to be extended through a full-year continuing resolution, instead of passing it fully in next week’s minibus.
“I don’t know yet, it’s very fluid,” Cole said, noting a CR is possible. He also said one plan could be to separate a vote on DHS and then a vote on the final three: Defense, Labor-Health and Human Services, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development.
A similar approach was taken last week, allowing fiscal conservatives who were upset with the contents of the Commerce, Justice, and Science bill to cast a “no” vote on it separately. The Commerce bill was then “smashed” into a final passage vote, including the Energy and Water bill and the Interior and Environment bill, which passed with wide bipartisan support.
On the DHS, Cole said most of the bill’s contents were “pretty worked out” and that the setback this week was due to “broad Democratic resentment.”
“We’ve got some people who simply don’t want to fund border security at all on the Democratic side, and they want to cast a no vote as a protest for the tragedy that happened in Minnesota,” the chairman said.
“I’m very sensitive to the political challenges they have on this particular bill,” the chairman added.
Including the DHS in a minibus with Defense, Labor and HHS, and Transportation and HUD could be tricky for leadership to get over the finish line, especially if Democrats withhold their votes over ICE.
Attendance matters
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Tuesday that he is “very optimistic” that those bills will get passed next week, but House Republicans have no margin for error.
Rep. Doug LaMalfa’s (R-CA) death last week put House Republicans at a two-seat majority with everyone present. Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) announced Monday that he would be missing House votes for an unspecified period of time due to his wife’s health, and Rep. Jim Baird (R-IN) is recovering from a car crash. Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC), who had surgery in December 2025, said in a video he is “still actively resting from my follow-up surgery and cannot be in Washington.”
Some right-flank Republicans are already pushing for amendments to this week’s minibus. They have been known to hold up the floor on procedural measures to force legislative change, so eyes will be on GOP leadership to see whether they can keep the conference together this week to avoid Democrats having an advantage on the floor.
In the last few weeks, attendance problems with Republicans could have allowed measures to fail on the floor had more Democrats been present. A procedural vote on Dec. 17, 2025, involving healthcare would have failed if Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who arrived late, could have voted to tank the measure.
HOUSE PASSES THREE SPENDING BILLS IN LATEST EFFORT TO AVOID SHUTDOWN
When asked if there was anything Democrats could do to beef up attendance, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) said, “Our strategy is simple: Show up and vote if it can help the American public.”
“We talk about it every day in every meeting. … We’re going to keep showing up and coming to work, and that’s what we’ll continue to stress to our colleagues,” Aguilar said.