WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with any deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security, as long lines continue to grow at airports nationwide. He remained noncommittal about signing a bill if it were passed.
“Well, I don’t want to comment until I see the deal, but as you know, they’re negotiating a deal. I guess they’re getting fairly close. But I think any deal they make, I’m — I’m pretty much not happy with it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
When asked if he would be “comfortable with a deal that involves separating ICE funding from the DHS funding package” to reopen the agency, Trump deflected and stated that a deal was being negotiated.
“Well, they’re working on all of that. You know, that’s a detail that they’ll explain later,” Trump said.
A White House official told FWRD AXIS News earlier Tuesday that “conversations are ongoing but this deal seems to be acceptable.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday that Republicans were moving ahead in the Senate with a proposal to fund DHS, except for immigration enforcement operations, for the rest of the fiscal year.
“It’s basically the discussion that’s been held for the last couple of days. I think the offer originally with the Democrats, and that is to fund 94% of the DHS budget, the $5.5 billion that was, as part of the ICE budget, that was pre-funded by reconciliation, would not be included in this deal,” Thune told reporters.
ICE, which received a $75 billion cash infusion over five years in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” signed into law by Trump last summer, has the financial means to continue its operations. While ICE agents continue to receive their salaries, their counterparts in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are not.
Democrats are blocking DHS funding and demanding ICE reforms following the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis. Schumer now says Democrats are pursuing additional negotiations on ICE reforms.
“We need reforms to ICE. We need to rein in the violence. We have never changed our position. This does not have any reforms in ICE,” Schumer said Tuesday. “We’ll be sending them an offer back, and I can assure you, it’ll contain significant reform in it.”
