Only seven Democrats joined all but one Republican to fund the Department of Homeland Security as many Democratic voters continue to speak out against crackdowns by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Reps. Don Davis of North Carolina, Tom Suozzi of New York, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Laura Gillen of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Jared Golden of Maine voted to fund the Department of Homeland Security. All of them hail from districts that voted for President Donald Trump.
Only Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, a perpetual gadfly in the House, joined the rest of the Democrats to oppose the bill.
The vote came as many Democrats have criticized tactics by ICE, particularly after the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this month. Rep. Angie Craig, who represents the Minneapolis area and is running for Senate in the state, said she was a “hell no” on the legislation.
In response to the killing, the Homeland Security appropriations bill included $20 million for body cameras that ICE would have to wear during operations.
“I want to see standards around use of force,” Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island, a member of the Homeland Security Committee, told The Independent. “I want to see due process or a judicial warrant requirement before people's houses are broken into, I mean basic civil liberty protections. You know, they already have billions and billions of dollars that they haven't spent yet from the from the reconciliation bill.”
Magaziner’s words echoed what many other Democrats said about the billions of dollars Republicans gave to ICE in the One Big, Beautiful Bill that passed last year.
And even Democrats from other districts that voted for Trump expressed hesitation. On Wednesday, Rep. Adam Gray, who represents a district that voted for Trump and who only won his seat by 187 votes, expressed hesitation about voting for the bill.
“One of the negotiating points that I'm most concerned about is what provisions and guardrails are in the bill to make sure that no, not one, zero US citizens are detained unlawfully,” he told The Independent. “It needs to be like a red line. You don't cross it, and the penalty for crossing it is severe.”
Democrats who voted for the bill expressed their anger at ICE’s tactics. Gonzalez, who represents the Rio Grande Valley, told The Independent that he voted for the bill because it included funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard. But he also said that the bill did not defund ICE.
“Now, you put a bill on this floor that will defund ICE operations in my district and around the country, and I'll vote a yes for it,” Gonzalez said.
Davis of North Carolina said that he wanted to see safeguards.
“I mean, obviously I think we should have the honest conversations about warrants,” he told The Independent. “We should have the honest conversations about taking off the mask.”
The House rushed to pass the final spending bills to keep the government open until the end of the fiscal year. While other spending bills were coupled together in what are called “minibus” spending bills, the Homeland Security spending bill received a standalone vote.
In addition, many Democrats who had missed votes showed up to oppose the bill, such as Rep. Greg Casar of Texas who just had a son and Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, who is campaigning for governor.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who has long called for the abolition of the agency established in 2003 in response to the global war on terror, expressed satisfaction.
“I’m very proud of our caucus, Democrats voted against DHS appropriations and I think it was the right thing to do in this moment,” she told The Independent.
