Senate to vote on DHS funding as deal on ICE reforms appears out of reach ahead of deadline
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Washington — The Senate is set to vote Thursday on funding for the Department of Homeland Security, facing an end-of-week deadline to avoid another partial government shutdown. But a deal that Democrats and Republicans have sought to reform the administration's immigration enforcement operation has remained elusive. Jaala Brown, Nikole Killion and Caitlin Huey-Burns contributed to this report.
Washington — The Senate is set to vote Thursday on funding for the Department of Homeland Security, facing an end-of-week deadline to avoid another partial government shutdown. But a deal that Democrats and Republicans have sought to reform the administration's immigration enforcement operation has remained elusive.
Funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, is set to lapse at 12 a.m. Saturday. And although Democrats and the White House have traded proposals in recent days, the standoff appears unlikely to come to an end in the near future.
The White House sent a legislative proposal to fund DHS late Wednesday, days after Democrats sent their own draft bill. Democratic leaders were quick to dismiss an earlier version of the counterproposal from the White House this week, calling it "incomplete and insufficient." At the time, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats, noted they "await additional detail and text."
Last week, in a letter to their GOP counterparts, Democratic leadership laid out a list of their demands for reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is overseen by DHS. Since 37-year-old Alex Pretti was shot and killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis last month, congressional Democrats have demanded changes to ICE in exchange for their votes to fund DHS.
Democrats want to restrict immigration agents from wearing masks, require them to wear identification and body cameras and standardize their uniforms and equipment. They also want to ban racial profiling, require judicial warrants to enter private property and bar immigration enforcement at medical facilities, schools, child care facilities, churches, polling places and courts. And they pushed to impose "reasonable" use-of-force standards, allow state and local jurisdictions to investigate and prosecute "excessive force" and introduce safeguards into the detention system.
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