Federal agents block and stop a woman to ask about the whereabouts of another person in south Minneapolis on Monday, January 19, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives passed four budget bills Thursday to fund the government and avert a partial shutdown, but Democrats largely opposed spending for the Department of Homeland Security amid aggressive immigration enforcement in communities across the country.
Democrats have pushed for stricter oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Additionally, Members of the progressive wing The caucus leader vowed not to approve funding for DHS after federal immigration agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis earlier this month.
The 37-year-old mother’s death sparked massive community protests and thousands of ICE agents have aggressively moved into Minnesota.
“(Homeland Security Secretary) Kristi Noem and ICE are out of control,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement. “Taxpayer dollars are being misused to brutalize U.S. citizens, including the tragic murder of Renee Nicole Good. This extremism must end.”
The four bills — defense; homeland security; employment, health and social services and education; and transport, housing and urban development – are the last remaining budget proposals needed to avoid a partial government shutdown until January 30.
The Homeland Security funding bill passed 220-207. The remaining bills were passed 341-88.
Democrats who joined Republicans in voting for the homeland security bill included Reps. Jared Gold of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state, Tom Suozzi of New York, Don Davis of North Carolina, Laura Gillen of New York and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas.
Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky voted against the DHS funding bill.
Separately, Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, chairwoman of the Rules Committee, added a provision to repeal a law that allows members of the U.S. Senate to sue for up to half a million dollars if their phone records were obtained by special counsel Jack Smith during his investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 presidential election. In a sporadic move, the The provision was approved unanimously.
Smith was also on Capitol Hill Thursday to testify about his investigation before lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The Senate will take up the budget bills when senators return from recess next week.
What does the homeland security bill contain?
The Homeland Security bill includes $64.4 billion in fiscal year 2026 appropriations. He cuts funding for Customs and Border Protection by $1.3 billion and leaves blanket funding for ICE at $10 billion.
The bill seeks to limit immigration enforcement by providing $20 million for body cameras for ICE and CBP officers.
DHS must also report monthly how the agency is spending the $190 billion it received from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the tax and spending cuts package signed by the president last summer.
The bill also limits ICE to spending only $3.8 billion of its budget on detentions. However, the agency will still be able to withdraw $75 billion from OBBBA, including for incarceration.
Most Democrats say they cannot support ICE funding
During debate on the bill on Thursday, Republicans supported the homeland security bill, arguing that it includes other authorities in addition to immigration enforcement.
But a majority of Democrats said they couldn’t vote to fund the agency because of ICE’s actions.
“I think we should look at the bill in its entirety,” said Oklahoma Republican Party Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole. “Encouraging people to believe that we have massive bad actors in a particular agency … comparing police officers to the Gestapo or the Nazis, that’s not true. The right thing to do is fund the people who protect America.”
Foxx criticized Democrats for their concerns about ICE’s enforcement tactics. In the House, she defended the agency, arguing that “ICE agents arrest some of the worst criminals imaginable.”
“The problem is that ICE is terrorizing communities and attacking people, including U.S. citizens,” said the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. “This is an out-of-control agency that is at war with communities across the country, and they don’t care if you are a U.S. citizen.”
The top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said he could not support the vote for the bill because the Trump administration had weaponized the agency and “DHS has strayed from its core mission.”
“However, the Republicans who control Congress exercise no control and do nothing other than send blank check after blank check to DHS,” he said in a statement. “I have consistently supported the DHS workforce over the past two decades and will continue to do so, but I cannot in good conscience vote to send another penny to CBP and ICE because they terrorize our communities and tarnish the Constitution.”
Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said she would vote against the bill even though she was proud of several provisions, such as increased Federal Emergency Management Agency funding and a pay raise for air traffic controllers.
But she said, “It is impossible to ignore the impact of ICE.”
“ICE is an agency that has proven itself to be lawless,” she said.
Republicans advocate providing body cameras
Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, chairman of the panel that handles homeland security funding, defended the funding bill, noting that it provides body cameras to immigration agents. He said the measure will also provide funding for the Coast Guard and agencies dealing with cybersecurity.
Cuellar of Texas, the top Democrat on the same panel, acknowledged that “this bill is not perfect.”
“It’s better than the alternative of leaving the department with a blank check,” he said. “This bill provides blanket funding to ICE, but at the same time we strengthen oversight of ICE.”
Minnesota Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum said ICE’s enforcement in Minnesota and across the country is one of the “worst cases of civil rights violations by the federal government in recent history.”
“Minnesotans are being racially profiled, attacked on our streets and kidnapped from our communities on a massive scale,” she said.
