The Leverage Democrats Finally Have
For years, the Democratic base believed their congressional leaders were cardboard cutouts unable to mount effective opposition to authoritarian advance. This week's Department of Homeland Security funding fight proves the opposite. Democrats are playing hardball—and winning.
Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Bill Kristol write that the fight is going about as well as anyone could have hoped. The House passed a spending bill reopening the government after a partial shutdown. Defense, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, State, and Treasury are funded until fall. Homeland Security gets only two weeks.
Why This Fight Matters
Some progressives want more. Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota summed up the position before the vote: "Not only should ICE receive NO funding, it should be abolished."
That is a policy fight for Democrats with unified government control in the next few years. The idea it is achievable now is fantasy. Shutting down the government for enormous periods might raise public awareness, but it does not magically create consensus. Democrats' shutdown last year could not squeeze Republicans into reinstating Obamacare subsidies. Vaporizing ICE is ridiculous.
The cherry on top: even indefinite shutdown would not starve ICE of funds, given the gobs of cash already appropriated by last year's spending bill.
But Republicans face a problem they never had before. Widespread squeamishness among elected Republicans about how Homeland Security conducts its business. Republican leaders hoped to whisk DHS funding quickly into law by pairing it with other appropriations bills. Party defections forced them to strip DHS out.
Democrats got the closest thing to an ideal setup. The appropriations bills they passed include policies that seemed unachievable during the heydays of government efficiency commissions. Increased funding for the National Institutes of Health, global HIV programs, federal K-12 school programs. Specific funding levels meant to protect against future administration efforts to claw back money through executive actions.
What Democrats Are DemandING
Chuck Schumer laid out the asks last week. They want an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement's most openly lawless enforcement practices: invading homes without judicial warrants, conducting aimless roving enforcement sweeps. They want a uniform code of conduct and accountability enforced by independent investigators. They want to ban masks and compel body cameras on immigration officers.
Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Bill Kristol add one more demand: any DHS deal should allocate money for new immigration judges. One of the more quietly ridiculous components of this administration's immigration agenda is its deliberate refusal to address the immigration court backlog—the actual source of so many preexisting enforcement problems.
Instead of fixing the problem, Republicans have tried to use the shortage of immigration judges as an excuse to cut judges out of the process entirely. House Speaker Mike Johnson said yesterday: "Imagine if we had to go through the process of getting a judicial warrant—an additional warrant—to go and apprehend people who we know are here illegally. How much time would that take? We don't have enough judges. We don't have enough time."
Democrats should say: let us help you out in this department.
"ICE is terrorizing America's streets right now. Democrats have the ability and the leverage to play hardball for some of these reforms right now."
This is not like the last shutdown fight. Democrats are not just trying to raise public awareness, cultivate goodwill among their base, or move the Overton window closer to ideal ICE legislation for some indeterminate future point. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is terrorizing America's streets right now. Democrats have the ability and leverage to play hardball for reforms right now. A win is there for the taking—if they do not decide to call it a loss.
Springfield: Relief Arrives, Fear Remains
The human cost of this policy fight lives in Springfield, Ohio. The city is on edge. Tuesday was supposed to be the last day of temporary protected status for the twelve thousand or more Haitian immigrants who settled there seeking refuge from violence and chaos after the 2010 earthquake.
Monday brought news of a reprieve: a federal judge stayed the revocation of TPS status.
The administration claimed the environmental situation in Haiti has improved enough that it is safe for Haitian citizens to return home. The non-environmental situation is still awful. The State Department's advice: Do Not Travel due to kidnapping, crime, terrorist activity, civil unrest, limited health care.
At the local library, the Sunday edition of the Springfield News-Sun features a red pullquote in all caps: EVERYONE IS WORRIED.
Jean Joseph, fifty-two, from Port-au-Prince, told the paper through a translator he has no plans to return to Haiti: "If we have to go back to Haiti and die, so be it."
Carl Ruby, senior pastor of Central Christian Church and leader in the local effort to help the Haitian community, has been nonstop with interviews. He pauses, gives the church's address, invites the reporter over to talk in person.
When the reporter arrives, Central Christian is prepared to offer sanctuary: piles of fresh diapers, air mattresses, supplies at the ready.
The previous Sunday, a woman in her forties arrived, panicked she would be separated from her seven-year-old daughter. All they have is each other. The woman suffered a stroke during communion, losing all feeling in her left side. The doctor said it looked like a response to stress.
That seven-year-old could have been the next Liam Ramos—a scared little kid separated from her parent by the government. In a way, for a brief time, she was.
Rosena Jean Louis, owner of Rose Goute Creole Restaurant, told the News-Sun her business was down sixty percent in the days leading up to the announced end of TPS. Where did everyone go? Ruby says: "I don't think people have left. I think they're afraid to come out. People are afraid to be seen at Haitian businesses. They're afraid ICE is going to catch them there."
"Today could have been one of the worst days in our city's history," Ruby says, reflecting on how immigrants have revitalized what was once another mid-sized Ohio city in decline. "In the last couple of years, three thousand new homes have been built, are being built, or are in the planning stages. That hasn't happened here in half a century."
But that revitalization stopped—even before the revocation decision. Ruby relays data from an affiliate of the local chamber of commerce: "We typically get twenty to twenty-one inquiries a year from businesses looking for a place to locate. We have not had a single one since the 'cats and dogs' comment."
Critics might note that Ruby's economic argument rests on correlation, not causation. Business inquiries could have declined for any number of reasons: national economic conditions, local infrastructure issues, broader political uncertainty unrelated to immigration policy.
"If Haitians are deported," Ruby says, "it will set Springfield back fifty years."
Ruby would like Republican leadership to come visit. "We would love to show him how Haitians are making America great right here in Springfield," he says, straightfaced. He is not being cute. He really means it.
The Minnesota Shift
There is a significant Immigration and Customs Enforcement enforcement change underway in Minneapolis. The faction favoring broad, indiscriminate sweeps is losing out, for the time being, to the faction favoring a more restrained policy of targeted enforcement—going after specific aliens with criminal histories, or at least criminal charges.
Some of that internal disagreement dates back months. In September emails obtained by NBC News, Greg Bovino—the Border Patrol commander now ousted from the Minneapolis operation—discussed ICE acting director Todd Lyons's attempts to curtail his aggressive approach. "Mr. Lyons seemed intent that CBP conduct targeted operations for at least two weeks before transitioning to full scale immigration enforcement. I declined his suggestion. Mr. Lyons said he was in charge, and I corrected him saying I report to Corey Lewandowski."
Critics might note that DHS spokespersons have consistently advanced the lie that all Minneapolis operations were targeted all along. It is hard to believe that the new-look avatars of restraint might really function as adults in the room. A change in ICE's tactics toward migrants does not necessarily include a change in its tactics toward protesters.
Still, one thing seems true: resistance and political blowback in Minnesota have brought concrete change to ICE's enforcement philosophy. If a goal of these protests is to protect minority Minnesotans from the predations of pretextual arrest and brutality at the hands of a hyper-zealous and anonymous federal force, that is a real win.
Bottom Line
Democrats have leverage on Homeland Security funding they never had before. Republican defections, public squeamishness about enforcement practices, and the human cost visible in places like Springfield have created a genuine negotiating position. The demands—warrants for home invasions, body cameras, independent investigators, immigration judges—are modest, achievable reforms. But leverage is fleeting. If Democrats call this a loss or concede without extracting concrete changes, they will have proven the base's worst fears: that their leaders are indeed cardboard cutouts. The win is there for the taking. Take it.