Jeffries Won’t Whip Vote Against ICE Funding
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) announced in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday that he would oppose the bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the rest of the fiscal year. But the Democratic caucus is not engaged in a formal whip operation to encourage all members to vote against the bill, which is likely to get a vote on Thursday.
Two congressional sources told the Prospect that Jeffries and his leadership team were “recommending” a no vote, but that is different from a whip operation where Democratic Whip Rep. Katherine Clark and her deputies push members to support the leadership position on the bill. Several frontline Democrats in swing seats are expected to vote in favor of the appropriation.
“They’re terrified of being labeled anti–law enforcement,” said a Hill source tracking the legislation. “They want this to go away so they can talk about the cost of living more. Problem is, it’s not going away.”
The DHS appropriation falls short of imposing true accountability on ICE in the wake of the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis. It “flat-funds” ICE at current levels for the fiscal year, although in real terms it’s an increase to the budget, because the previous year included a one-time “anomaly” of additional spending. It restricts spending on detention that could theoretically lower capacity to 41,500 beds from a proposed 50,000. And there are some limitations on what DHS can shift from other agencies into ICE. But because the bill includes no penalties or enforcing mechanisms to ensure that its funding directives are actually adhered to, these funding boundaries are not terribly meaningful.
Democratic lawmakers forced other “guardrails” into the bill, like funding for oversight of detention facilities and mandatory body cameras for ICE agents. And additional training is mandated for agents who interact with the public. But other measures, like blocking the detention and deportation of U.S. citizens or borrowing enforcement personnel from other agencies, weren’t added to the bill. And the funding, once again, is not guaranteed, given that the Trump administration has routinely withheld or shifted around funding without pushback from Congress.
For this reason, much of the House Democratic caucus, including Jeffries and Clark, can be expected to vote no. But the Democratic leadership worked it so that the DHS appropriations bill will get a separate vote from the other three bills in the package released on Tuesday. While a full four-bill package may have needed support from House Democrats, the DHS appropriation alone, with its meager accountability measures and funding for immigration enforcement, can be expected to get full support from House Republicans.
That makes it a free vote. But a large show of support against it from House Democrats could make it a heavier lift in the Senate, where Democrats would be needed for final passage to avert a filibuster.
Maximizing that opposition would typically be done through a formal whip operation, not by announcing personal opposition or merely “recommending” a no vote. In the prior two government funding showdowns in 2025, Jeffries did formally whip the caucus into opposition. But that has changed for this appropriations bill, which is specifically about immigration enforcement.
The analogous situation is when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pronounced himself a no on the legislation that ended the shutdown in November, while doing nothing to stop several Senate Democrats from providing the votes necessary to pass that legislation. In general, the job of a caucus leader is to unify the caucus, rather than take idiosyncratic personal votes.
The Hill source told the Prospect that in general, Democratic leadership was disinterested in fighting on the issue of ICE and immigration enforcement. “They’ll just yell at Trump as he escalates and hope people forget and don’t punish them for failing to use what little power they had when it mattered,” the source said.
It is true that ICE has a reserve of $75 billion from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, over seven times its annual budget, and that even if DHS were not funded, ICE agents would still be on the streets and paid in full through drawing from that reserve. Some might argue that this is all the more reason to vote against an inadequate package, because if the concern is to be seen as shutting down law enforcement, that won’t happen in this case.
Public polling shows plurality support for abolishing ICE entirely, including substantial support from self-described Democrats. Trump’s handling of immigration is sharply negative. Americans are clearly frustrated with the brutality from ICE that they are seeing in the media. Democrats are frustrated too, but not quite enough to do much about it.
Jeffries’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
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