House Democrats axed their 2021 homeland security funding bill from a broader spending package that is supposed to reach the floor this week, opting to temporarily sidestep a potentially bitter intraparty battle in an election year.
The $51 billion bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security past September was supposed to be part of a $1.4 trillion spending package the House is aiming to pass this week.
Instead, Democrats removed the DHS portion of the spending bill on Tuesday as they prepared the broader measure for floor consideration.
“I think we’re going to give ourselves a little bit more time to finalize that part of the appropriations process,” said House Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern, Massachusetts Democrat.
The DHS bill would never have become law, but Democrats have talked up the importance of passing their individual appropriations bills for fiscal 2021, which starts Oct. 1, as a statement of the party’s values.
A House Democratic aide said “frontline” House Democrats had raised concerns about some of the “progressive immigration provisions” in the bill.
In addition to a 25% cut from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation force, the bill would block the deportation of “Dreamers” and immigrants in the country under the Temporary Protected Status program.
It also would cut funding for ICE detention beds down to 10,000 during the coronavirus pandemic and down to 22,000 in normal times, which could force the agency to release many detainees back into the community.
The bill would limit the Trump administration’s ability to transfer funds, a move the White House has leveraged in recent years to try to move money around for President Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The bill marks “an opportunity for Congress to reclaim its spending and oversight authority over a department that has increasingly ignored that authority,” said Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, the California Democrat who is chairwoman of the homeland security spending subcommittee.
Republicans said Democrats might have reached too far.
“Apparently it was overly ambitious,” said Rep. Rob Woodall, Georgia Republican.
Leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus had raised concerns last week, though the Congressional Hispanic Caucus gave leadership a boost by offering its official support for the bill.
Some Democrats also were trying to amend the package to put new restrictions on the department’s ability to deploy federal agents to cities such as Portland, Oregon, where protesters have been attacking the federal courthouse.
The DHS bill has been the trickiest of the 12 annual appropriations bills to pass in recent years.
In addition to disputes over the border wall, there are persistent debates about ICE detention beds, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) funding, and Mr. Trump’s other immigration policies.
The House passed a four-bill, $259.5 billion package last week that funds foreign operations, agriculture, interior and military construction programs.
The Senate Appropriations Committee has not marked up any of its 2021 spending bills, and lawmakers will likely have to resort to passing another stopgap bill to keep the government running past Sept. 30.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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