The Fight Over ICE Funding

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1:02Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. We cannot fund a Department of Homeland Security that is murdering American citizens. The credibility of ICE and DHS is going to be called into question. With a government funding deadline Friday night, U.S. senators are actively debating a spending package that allocates billions to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration and customs enforcement and customs and border protection. The package passed the House last week, but that was before Border Patrol agents in Minnesota shot and killed Alex Preddy, an ICU nurse. An ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good on January 7th.

1:46As negotiations over the spending bill continue, Senate Democrats like Amy Klobuchar, who's now running for Minnesota governor, and Chris Murphy of Connecticut are saying they'll oppose the package until more safeguards on DHS, CPB, and ICE are in place. I am strongly opposed to more funding for ICE. Minneapolis is fundamentally less safe because ICE and CPB are there. And that's the point. They're there to cause a conflict. Meanwhile, Republicans like Senators Lisa Murkowski and Bill Cassidy have started to scrutinize DHS leadership and ICE's actions on the ground. We would be better served with new leadership.

2:28I think what you're seeing is President Trump focusing upon those events and deciding that he needs to guard that legacy. Tom Tellis is telling reporters this is an issue they should own, that their strong suit was border security and immigration. Something that got the president elected, they have destroyed it through their incompetence. It's one of the reasons why Donald Trump was elected. And now it's at risk of turning into a political liability. Stephen Dennis covers Congress for Bloomberg. And along with Bloomberg's Alicia Diaz has been tracking the spending fight. It's been remarkable to see, especially Republicans, albeit it's mostly Republicans who we've already seen speak out against the president, still a very small group, but start to be vocal in saying that someone needs to own this and it is going to be someone within the administration.

3:19The White House has started to move closer to Democrats' demands in the hopes of avoiding a government shutdown. Well, hopefully we won't have a shutdown. We're working on that right now. I think we're getting close. The Democrats, I don't believe, want to see it either. So we'll work in a very bipartisan way. I believe not to have a shutdown. We don't want a shutdown. But with billions of dollars already approved for ICE from Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, how much leverage does Congress have over an emboldened DHS? And what options are on the table now? A lot of Democrats who voted to end the previous shutdown, even though they're very upset about health care, these Democrats who crossed the line and said, OK, we need to end this shutdown, their conscience was shocked and they need to see something real.

4:07And so this could go on a long time because this is this is no longer about how many dollars somebody gets. This is about the kind of country we are.

4:22I'm Sarah Holder, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, inside the fight over ICE funding playing out in Washington, as tensions continue to flare in Minnesota.

4:39I'm wondering how you would describe this moment for Congress specifically. It has definitely been, as John Thune said, an inflection point for reevaluating the tactics, the procedures, how they're going about these raids. First, there was sort of a tsunami in the hours after the shooting, after the videos came out, after the White House and especially Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem called Alex Preddy a domestic terrorist and an assassin on social media with no evidence. And then I think it took Republicans another day or so to really realize that this was becoming a huge political liability for them heading into the midterm elections.

5:31And Alicia, what role does Congress really have when it comes to an agency like ICE and its oversight? What power do they have over the situation? The biggest thing is, as we're seeing this week, is through spending and through appropriations. And so they can coalesce and dictate how much money is going to detention beds, how much money is going to body cameras. And so Democrats, of course, being in the minority, are really trying to grasp onto this moment as this is where we can leverage a little glimpse of power and, you know, kind of make our issues known. And if that means a partial shutdown of the government, of course, it'll look very different than what we saw months ago with a full shutdown of the government.

6:16Then that is what it may take. So just last year, Congress allocated tens of billions of additional dollars to ICE through Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And all of the support for that passage came from Republicans who control the Senate and they have a slim majority in the House. So, Steve, let's start with what's happening in the Republican Party right now. What are you hearing from Republican members of Congress about how their views on ICE have shifted since approving that bill as the agency has escalated its presence in cities like Minneapolis? I have talked to a fair number of Republicans since the shooting who are still extremely supportive of the mission.

7:01What they are worried about is the tactics. You're starting to see complaints from Rand Paul, who did not vote for that package. For example, he's the Homeland Security chairman who has called for a hearing on February 12th. He's somebody who has long had concerns about the Fourth Amendment, the Second Amendment, the First Amendment. All of those are implicated in the shooting of Alex Brede. He was protesting, he was filming, and he was exercising his right to bear arms, which is legal in Minnesota and in the United States. And I don't think it's honest to say he brandished a weapon. I don't think it's honest to say he assaulted officers.

7:42And then you also have the situation that is bothering some Republicans where they are asserting that they can just barge into people's houses, smash people's windows and take them out of cars without a judicial warrant. And that's led to a lot of really bad images and videos that don't necessarily play well with swing voters and are absolutely firing up the Democratic Party base. So if you have 60 to 65 percent of the public who are unhappy with ICE tactics, that still means there might be two thirds of the Republican base that supports ICE tactics or even 80 percent. And so I think a lot of Republicans are trying to avoid angering their base, many of whom do not seem to have any problem with these shootings.

8:39And Alicia, one of the things that really demonstrates just how fast this conversation is moving is that just last week, the House approved a spending bill that includes billions in spending on the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. And that was also approved by a Republican majority. I'm wondering how significant it is to hear this more public criticism just a week after that vote and whether you think we'll see more opposition within Trump's party. This is the first time we're really seeing Republicans sandwiching in even a request for oversight or a full investigation to figure out what exactly happened here.

9:21And of course, going to Steve's point earlier, this is Trump's, you know, this is something that has been pretty popular for him up until this front, especially among Republican voters. So to see the tide kind of turn against him doesn't bode well necessarily. And especially as more details are released, I think that we will continue to see what exactly went wrong here. And that will either push Republicans to tap it down or build a broader coalition against ICE in general. We also saw Chris Maddle, one of the leading Republican candidates in Minnesota's gubernatorial race, who also provided legal assistance to the agent who shot Renee Good, drop out of the race on Tuesday.

10:06I cannot support the National Republican stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so. How has that been received by the party at large? It's definitely a signal that there is a growing sense of discontent in what is going on in Minneapolis. And I think it speaks to the significance of the moment. Yeah, also it looks at like the politics of it. One of the things he said in his 10 minute statement is that Republicans aren't going to win in this environment in Minnesota, that this is basically destroying their brand. And he said if he had millions of dollars to run as an independent, he would, but he doesn't.

10:46And so I think that there is just a lot of frustration that they should be winning on this issue. And they're kind of flubbing it. I want to turn my attention to the Democrats. Now, there were seven Democratic House representatives who voted for the DHS spending bill alongside Republicans last week. One of them, New York House Representative Tom Swasey, has since come out and said he regretted it. Alicia, how did those Democratic representatives justify their initial vote to approve DHS funding? And what's changed for someone like Swasey? It's notable that all seven who voted for the DHS funding bill are in these very vulnerable positions.

11:30They're either in a red region, kind of holding this swingy district position. Some are in areas that voted for Trump, and yet they, based on their namesake or based on reputation, have been able to continue leadership despite the sort of split throughout the ballot. And so I think leaning into the fact that immigration has been one of Trump's more popular policy fronts, especially among Republicans, that was sort of their justification. And of course, we've seen in recent weeks that this can really come back on them. I guess time will tell if this decision kind of comes to bite them come election time.

12:15After the break, where the debate in Washington could go from here. and what it could mean on the ground in Minnesota.

12:33Congress could decide to spin out DHS funding from the larger spending package so that it can be considered on its own. But if Congress doesn't reach a deal on the spending package by Friday, the U.S. government would be headed towards a partial shutdown. And Bloomberg's Alicia Diaz says that wouldn't necessarily mean federal agents would have to stop their operations in Minnesota. ICE will more or less continue to operate as normal. Many of those agents will continue to get paid. Many of them will be deemed essential workers. So in practical purposes, it will not have any kind of short-term impact to these on-the-ground raids or presences that we're seeing in cities across the country.

13:16I think the thing is, is that a lot of Democrats right now want to claw back some of that many tens of billions of dollars that they spent on border security that is funding what's going on now. Bloomberg's Stephen Dennis again. You know, huge recruitment drives, huge bonuses for signing up, quickie training programs, massive privately run for profit prison operations. You know, talk of bonuses, the more people they can detain. So there's this bigger issue here, which is they got this huge funding increase that was intended to go for four years. The Democrats call it a big slush fund because they could spend that money, whether the government is shut down or not.

13:59And the broader package, you have to put it in context of everything that's happened over the last year. This broader package actually rolls back a lot of the doge cuts. It restores funding for the Department of Education, for a lot of NIH research grants. It deals with all sorts of things all across the government. It's actually most of the government agencies, including health care and defense. There are so many things, thousands and thousands of little provisions in here that Democrats want, that they negotiated. And they were willing up until Saturday night when Chuck Schumer first put out a statement saying we're going to block this thing that we negotiated.

14:43They still want to pass most of that bill. I mean, Schumer told me as he was leaving the building and I was walking him out the door. I asked him sort of, well, what, you know, is there a way out here? And he said, you know, the first thing that has to happen is the Republicans have to agree to split off the DHS funding. And we'll set that aside and pass everything else. Republicans know that if the DHS bill is spun off, they sort of lose their leverage for getting any compromise through the door. So from the Republican point of view, it is less likely to have that bill spin off. They want it to be this bigger, more encompassing package of spending bills that would essentially fund about half of the government and bring those all together through the door come Friday.

15:34And I want to talk about some of those accountability measures that could be baked into a Senate version of this bill, right? in the House-approved version of the spending bill. There's$20 million for body cameras for ICE agents. There's$20 million towards some more oversight of DHS facilities. So other than the hard money numbers that are being debated here, are there other provisions Congress is talking about working into this spending bill or strengthening that could rein in ICE, Alicia? Several Democrats have called for specific, more so like human rights provisions. ICE agents can't wear masks.

16:08ICE agents can't racially profile or enter a place of worship, like a synagogue or a church, and use that as kind of a grounds for targeting people who are here undocumented. So there are less funding-specific provisions that Democrats are really fighting to get into this bill. I talked to Tina Smith. She's a senator from Minnesota. And I asked her about what the Republicans are pushing for, John Thune, Susan Collins, etc. And there are these talks going on with the administration on some kind of executive action that the president could take. Now, he's taken some small actions, but Tina Smith told me that on the ground in Minnesota, things haven't really changed.

16:51They're still continuing to do what they're doing, taking people off the streets, separating families, all the rest. And she said she is not going to be satisfied with what she called a pinky promise from this administration. There is no trust. And if there is no trust, you can't just satisfy people with some kind of sort of half measure changing of who is in charge with Tom Homan going to Minneapolis. As things stand, I think one of the biggest things to watch will be whether this specific DHS bill will be spun off or not. And if there are substantive changes made to the bill, the House would need to approve them when they're back in session.

17:35And that happens next week? Yes, correct. So the House will return next week. They then will have to go and approve the changes. And we've had a better sense of how the Senate is feeling about the tragedies that occurred in Minneapolis because they've been here this week and they've been in the hallways. They've been tweeting. Some members of the House have taken their point of view to social media. But they don't necessarily have to face questions from reporters in the hallway. So when they return to Washington, we'll get a better sense of if there is some kind of a compromise, is the House going to play ball with it?

18:10And my last question is just about where the president stands on all of this, because the funding bill changed or unchanged, spun off or intact, will end up on the president's desk eventually. I'm interested in how you're tracking Trump's rhetorical changes here. He gave a speech in Iowa on Tuesday night where he said he was going to de-escalate a little bit when it comes to the approach to immigration enforcement in Minneapolis. But, you know, he also described the people arrested by ICE in Minnesota as hardened, vicious criminals. According to The New York Times, most of the people who've been arrested by ICE in its most high profile raids, like the ones in L.A.

18:47and Chicago, have no criminal record. So I'm wondering, Alicia, what does Trump's shift in rhetoric and tone around this issue signal? And what doesn't it signal? I think it's very telling. Of course, we have seen the president swing back and forth on a variety of issues. What comes to mind is tariffs. So again, we've sort of seen that seesaw happening with the actions in Minneapolis. He has this blunt rhetoric calling folks on the ground criminals, pointing to the fact that Alex Preddy had a gun. While, of course, we knew that it was something that he was legally able to conceal and carry. Time will tell how he will respond to changes in a government funding bill.

19:34But he seems, as of now, open to some sort of reigning in. even if it's not by his own actions because we've seen the American people respond to this and this is one of his most popular policies and it doesn't bode well for anyone if his voters and constituents start to turn the tides on that.

20:01This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg.com, subscribe today at Bloomberg.com slash podcast offer. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.