The NPR Politics Podcast - DHS funding set to expire as talks over immigration enforcement reforms stall

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security is set to expire at the end of the day Friday, after congressional leaders’ negotiations over reforms to immigration enforcement operations stalled. We discuss what a shutdown of the department means in practical terms, plus what we learned when immigration agency leaders testified before Congress this week. This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt, and immigration policy correspondent Ximena Bustillo.This podcast was produced by Bria Suggs and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast for Friday, February 13th, do not do, do, do, 226. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress. And I'm Jimenez-Bustillo, and I cover immigration policy. And today on the show, funding for the Department of Homeland Security is set to run out at midnight as Democrats are forcing yet another government shutdown over reforms they want to see with ICE. Barbara, remind us how we got here and why we're talking about just a specific agency shutting down as a to the entire government. Right. It feels almost not right, right? Because we've had so many of these where it's like the impending massive government shutdown. And this is just a slice. It is the DHS slice of things. Last month, there were a few appropriations bills that were outstanding that they needed to get passed by the end of January for fiscal year, 2026 funding. And last month, the Senate stripped the DHS part of that out from this broader federal spending package, probably so that other places wouldn't also endure a shutdown. And they did a stopgap bill for DHS that ended up being just about under two weeks so that parties could work on negotiating changes to the department. Those negotiations are out of standstill. Of course, funding runs out tonight.

Okay. So then let's get into the negotiations here. What are Democrats actually asking for in exchange for funding this agency? Yeah. And this is, of course, in the wake of the two fatal shootings in Minneapolis by immigration enforcement officers. And almost immediately after the shooting of 37-year-old Alex Preti. Democrats came out and said there's just no way that we will be able to vote for a DHS funding bill without major changes to the department policies. They have listed a series of proposals, the top Democrats in both the Senate and the House. There are things that have some bipartisan agreement. Body cameras generally have consensus across the aisle.

The idea that officers should be wearing them. Dems want that codified into law. But there are other areas that, you know, Democrats are pushing for and Republicans are resisting. to. A big one is prohibiting face coverings. I think like we've all seen the images of officers wearing these masks, these face coverings, Democrats want to prohibit those. The argument from Republicans is that it makes it easier for people to docks federal agents if they can see their face. But Democrats counter that and say, you know, this would actually bring immigration enforcement officers in line with other police officers, you know, who don't wear masks. And, you know, there are other things that they're asking for, expanded training, calls to prohibit using funds.

for conducting these kinds of raids near child care facilities and churches and schools. And the big one that I think Hemeni can talk more to is the idea that they want to mandate that only warrants signed by a judge can be used to make arrests, as opposed to what is currently happening, which is the use of administrative warrants signed by DHS officials, not judges. You know, during the course of the week, we also saw the heads of immigration, customs enforcement, customs and boards. protection and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services testify before lawmakers in the House and Senate. And even they said we want Congress to give us these body cameras. Essentially, ICE only has about 3,000 body cameras for 12,000 agents. And Border Patrol has about 10,000 cameras for 20,000 agents. And the commissioner of Border Patrol literally pleaded to Congress and he was like, if I can just take

this moment to make this ask, fund this program, make sure we don't just have the body cameras, but also the personnel, you know, the technicians, the IT people, the trainers so that the program can be fully implemented. So that is like, has the trifecta of all support. Then when we get to other things such as the face coverings or the uses of different warrants, that's where you start to see some splits. And, you know, immigration and customs. enforcement and White House officials have, you know, kind of tried to say that, you know, they haven't done major operations at daycare centers or hospitals, but they also want the option to do that. And so we're seeing kind of the push and pull between executive options of how they want to

enforce immigration law versus Democrats, which want to have, you know, some sort of guardrails on that. Well, the deadline, again, as I mentioned, is tonight. What does that mean for For tomorrow, when it comes to immigration enforcement specifically, I mean, are we talking about basically this, you know, this increased enforcement effort that we've been talking about for the last year? Does that just stop tomorrow without funding? No, no, it does not. So the thing about DHS is a lot of its agencies like the immigration parts are law enforcement. So they're going to continue working no matter what. You might remember that this summer, I got $75 billion in the one big beautiful bill.

as kind of a little bit of like a cash fund, unrestricted funds. Now, the lessons learned from the last shutdown is that they tapped into that money to continue paying officers and agents. And so those who are out there, those who are deportation officers, those who are making arrests, patrolling the border, patrolling other cities, they will continue working. And it's likely that they will continue to be paid. What about, I mean, the Department of Homeland Security, we cannot overstate how many. massive this agency is. What about the other parts of it that are still critical? I mean, things like FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard, TSA, you know, people who want to fly this weekend. How are all of these other aspects of DHS going to be impacted?

So there's about a quarter of a million people employed by DHS. Only, according to their contingency plan, about 22,000 would be furloughed, which means most people would be working either with or without pay. You know, DHS like every agency is sprawling. With the last shutdown, we saw the Office of Immigration Detention Oversight, which it investigates if there's a death in custody at a detention center. They did not work the entire last shutdown. And there were five deaths in custody during that time period. So there are things like mandatory reporting that could slow down, oversight that could slow down. And obviously not to make. minimize tens of thousands of people that could go without pay.

But it's not like Democrats are able to shut down this entire massive apparatus. So I'm curious from a political perspective what the thinking is here or the strategy, if they're not able by doing this to really even impact what President Trump wants to do when it comes to immigration enforcement. Right. And Barrett can definitely talk about this too. But the strategy for this shutdown is not the same political strategy for other shutdowns. Like in other shutdowns, you know, we are asking questions about whether or not the mail's going to arrive on time.

If people are going to access their food benefits, if the Smithsonian's are going to be open. Like, we're not seeing this broad national panic about whether or not services are going to be made available. But what the shutdown does is it means DHS does have less money. So, again, we're talking about two pots of money. Let's think about it like a savings account and a checking account. The checking account is the regular paycheck you get, the annual appropriations Congress gives, the savings account is the money Congress gave. If you don't get a paycheck, you can still dip into your savings account, right?

And that's what they're doing. But when you look at it over the course of the fiscal year, they're going to have less money in total than if Congress would have funded them in January. Barbara, do you have a sense? I mean, the last government shutdown ended without Democrats. getting what they ultimately said the entire time they wanted, which was an extension of the subsidies for people who were getting health insurance through Obamacare marketplaces, they basically ended up having to give that up at a certain point. Is there any sense from people you talk to on the Hill on whether Democrats are going to get what they want this time? You know, I think

it's just a fundamentally different situation. The sort of like philosophy behind it, the way that this is going to move forward is just drastically different. than the first time. After the fatal shooting of Alex Pready, you saw a ton of Democrats talking about it, specifically as it related to this DHS funding bill. You also saw Republicans calling for oversight. And I think that this speaks to something that is permeating the consciousness of the country in a much different way. Talking about what's going to happen in the future with people's premiums, I do believe it can be made a salient point, but it is harder to do than something that is in the now where people are looking at some. something playing out on their phone as a video that is frankly horrifying to a lot of people and saying, I want answers now, I want change now. And that is a very different momentum. And I think it speaks to an awareness of public opinion. I mean, we've done polling here through NPR and its partners that show that a majority of Americans say that ICE has gone too far in the way it's enforcing its priorities. I mean, earlier this week on the podcast, we heard from this

focus group of swing voters. These are voters who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, but voted for Donald Trump in 2024. And they said that they or somebody they know have changed their life related to ICE enforcement activity. And so this is like a, that's such an interesting point you make about this, just being a very present thing for many people. This week actually made me recall some of previous reporting I've done in the last like six months or so going out outside of D.C. and talking to people particularly in red districts who may not have like the blue city is a in their red district, but it might be like an hour away. And it really surprised me the number of like self-described Republicans or conservatives who told me, I don't want that in my state. Yeah,

it's a blue city. It's not my blue city, but it is in my state. And I'm not comfortable with that. Specifically with regards to the enforcement, immigration. Yeah. And I think that like the scope of what we've seen, and particularly in the surge operation in Minneapolis, unnerves a lot of people. A lot of people who still support the underlying mission of ICE, you know, who still support the president's thesis of the case about immigration enforcement but are uncomfortable about the way that it's being conducted. All right. Let's take a quick break and more on those hearings on the Hill in just a moment. And we're back. And President Trump's immigration enforcement strategy was the focus of Capitol Hill this week in more ways than just funding. As we talked about earlier, key agency leaders were on the

Hill answering questions from lawmakers. A lot of them focused on the two deaths of American citizens, Renee McClend Good and Alex Pretti. Hemena, let's just start there with these hearings. Did we learn anything new about what happened in either of those instances? You know, to an extent, not a lot of specifics. All three, you know, declined to comment on pending investigations. There were a lot of efforts to try and get these officials to provide insight on whether or not the investigations were happening appropriately, whether or not the use of force was appropriate. And by and large, they tended to dodge these questions. However, one thing that I thought was really salient was at the start of the Senate hearing. We had a chairman, Ram Paul, Republican from Kentucky,

and ranking member, Senator Gary Peters of Michigan. And they combined together to have this, this play-by-play frame of video footage, basically, of the events leading up to specifically Preddy's death. And at each point, they asked the head of ICE and the head of Border Patrol, is this justified use of force? Is this tactic to de-escalate? And we kind of hear that throughout. I see nothing here. I mean, not even a hint of something that was aggressive on his part. Everything was retreat. He's over in the street. He's over in the street. He retreats. He retreats. He retreats. The woman is pushed to the ground. He tries to assist the woman to get up. He's violent. He's sprayed. And it just continues. And that's Senator Paul. And he really hammered this point home. You know, is shoving the woman appropriate. Is pepper spraying someone in the face at, you know, very close, like within inches of someone's faces we've seen in not just this instance, but other instances. Is that an appropriate de-escalation tactic? When do you draw your weapon? How are people?

people trained on the use of their weapons. We just saw this over and over again. And so, you know, even though the officials, you know, declined to comment broadly on the investigations and the instances, they sometimes did provide some answers to whether or not these actions in a vacuum were appropriate. The broad answers being no. Barbara, that does seem notable, that level of bipartisanship from Senators Paul and Peters. Am I wrong on that? It was a very interesting hearing for. that reason. Chairman Paul is not representative of the broad vibe of the rest of the Republicans on the committee. So I think on the one hand, the hearing would have been very different had another

Republican been sitting in that chair. But Senator Paul, I think, did a very good job as chairman of sort of like making this an accessible hearing. And I say that because a lot of times I'll tune into a hearing and I'm like already primed to know what the subject matter is and I'm like what are they talking about it's like there's a lot of grandstanding sometimes it's just shouting over each other because people want to make a little clip for their next campaign and it's not always substantive and it's really hard to follow sometimes and this really stood out to me because in this hearing it felt like the folks who were leading the hearing were very measured it felt like they were trying to make it accessible for anyone tuning in and it felt like they actually were trying to

trying to do like fact finding. I mean, Hemanah, we were talking about this earlier, you know, Chairman Paul kept saying, let's just pause and bring it back to this question. Like, is this de-escalation? You know, like, can you tell us about what the training is like? And I'm like, anyone tuning in would be able to follow along with this. And these are the questions that people have. Training has been the number one question. Acting ICE director, Todd Lyons, did say that they had hired 12,000 more officers. And then he provided additional details that they did cut the training period at the federal law enforcement training center in Georgia from 72 days to 42 days. And in questions from Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego, he told the senator

that it was possible for someone to go from having never held a weapon before to 45 days later, having, quote, on the job training to get real world experience and be out on like the streets of Minneapolis. I do say that with the caveat that the officers and the agents who have been at the center of the shootings of Good and Predi, they'd been with the agency for several years. So there is a limit to which the training question is relevant in those instances. But, I mean, that's still that's still information that we managed to confirm about how this agency is preparing a large amount of officers to hit the street. Totally. It's not necessarily representative of the entire force of people who are doing immigration enforcement, but as we seek to understand all the changes that have

been happening in the last year and how that's actually playing out, I can totally see why that's an important detail. There's a lot of questions about Christy Noem's leadership at DHS. Did anything come up related to her in these hearings? Yes, definitely. I mean, you might recall that after the shooting of Alex Prattie, at Christy Knoam that night held a press conference that I attended where she called Alex Pready, a domestic terrorist and said that his actions were the definition of domestic terrorism, that he'd brandished a weapon, you know, really made all these claims. Very quickly, a few days later, we got that internal customs and border protection report that completely contradicted this narrative. And immediately, there was a lot of bipartisan criticism over how

quickly she and other White House officials jumped to that label of domestic terrorism. Now, the officials who testified, so the head of ICE and the head of border protection, were asked about this. If they had given any information to Secretary Noem that would lead her to say that, they said no. Had anyone under their command given any information to Secretary Noam to make that statement, they said no. At every turn, when they were asked about this, they really distanced themselves from those comments saying they can't speak for her, that that's her prerogative, that if even President Trump, wants to make comments. That's on him. They can't speak to that. Now, during the Senate hearing, I will say acting director Todd Lyons of ICE, I think, went a little bit of a step further. When asked, okay, well, if your comments could do that, what about the secretary's comments? What about,

you know, deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller? Like, them making these comments, does that not bias in investigation? And Lyons said, yeah, comments made publicly on social media. he named Instagram, comments made by text. So private, public, can bias an investigation. And I thought that was really, really important for him to say because there have been so many questions about whether or not these federal led investigations into these shootings are going to be fair if anyone can trust them. What agency is leading them? That keeps changing. And we really saw some of the internal agency dissidents there. And, you know, Heman, you bring up such a great point, too, about trust that I really want to underline because I think that was also a big part of the hearing. Totally. And in fact, Chairman Paul said he felt that there was work to do on behalf of these agencies to repair the broken trust with the public. And to that end, I mean, the Trump administration said that it's going to end its immigration enforcement crackdown in Minnesota, which is, of course, what prompted these widespread protests. And so I think that's a key element in all of this as we're looking at, like, the shifting.

landscape of what the Trump administration is doing and how it's enforcing its priorities. Let's take a quick break. And when we get back, can't let it go. And we're back. And it's time to end the show like we end every week with Can't Let It Go. The part of the show where we talk about things we just cannot let go of, politics or otherwise. Hermena, why don't you start us off? So mine is politics, and it's very related to what we've been talking about the last, however many long. And that is that U.S.CIS director Joseph Edlo received very, very, very few questions during these two oversight hearings. I think during the Senate hearing, he only received questions from one senator. And that was New Jersey Democratic Senator Andy Kim, who asked about arrests that had

been made during Green Card interviews. And that to me was very very. salient because USCIS as an agency and under Edlo's command has really shifted its tenor over the last year. They have really leaned into policing tactics. They've also hired a lot of staff to be, quote unquote, homeland defenders. They are in the process of re-reviewing previously approved refugee applications and status. They've paused asylum. They have paused immigrant visas for 75 countries. I mean, the list is just endless of how they have, you know, really taken steps to limit pathways to legal migration. You know, he didn't get to talk about any of this, really. The entire time he gave one opening statement on Tuesday, didn't really get to talk on

Thursday. So on either side, either for Republicans to learn about how the Trump administration is bringing more scrutiny, didn't hear about that. And Democrats didn't really. And Democrats didn't really press on the changes either. Do you think this is a situation where the laundry list of things that lawmakers want to talk about is so long and this is just further down? Or is it just that like going back to like what we always talk about, which is that, I don't know, 70% of these hearings sometimes feels like getting a social media clip. And if he's not the head of the thing that is the most kind of salient in the news right now, that that's not what lawmakers are focusing on or why do you think? I think a combination of both. You know, USCIS is often not grouped in with ice and border.

Patrol, you know, acting director, Lions got the Lions share of the questions. And this whole thing was just meant to get you there, wasn't it? Oh, my gosh. But, but he did. And even at times he was like, this wasn't a nice operation. This was for Border Patrol. So you, you saw even amongst the three of them, you know, kind of tossing the potato responsibility of what the questions were. And that distinction makes a difference, you know, as someone that's covered federal agencies before, as someone that's a little bit into the the weeds on the policy. Like, I want to hear about it. I want to hear about the U.S. stuff. I want to hear about the Border Patrol stuff as separate as the ice stuff. And, you know, it makes

sense. The focus is on ice, but ice is not the only agency here. And, you know, not hearing conversation from either party on that. To me, I can't, I can't let it go. Okay, Miles, what would you say as your can't let it go? So my can't let it go is people with firm handshakes. Oh. You literally can't let go. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so punny. The reason I cannot let it go is because, as you both may know, I broke a finger in the last month playing basketball, which it's my pinky finger, which oddly doesn't impact my life barely at all. Like, it was very painful in the moment.

But after a week or two, it like kind of faded into the background. The only time it comes up is when I meet new people. And I'm like trying to read whether before the handcheck happens, whether it's going to be a firm handshake person or not. And deciding, should I just try to switch to a fist bump? Should I try to, like, because it is that the only time. What if you give your other hand? I could go, oh, I didn't even think I could pretend to be lefty. You have two hands.

I know, but doesn't, I've never, I don't know that I've ever. I think even left-handed people use the right hand for handshake. I think that would be, again, I think I go back to, like, I keep having this mental gymnastics thing happening to your point of like, should I use my left hand? The other option is I could just tell somebody. I have a broken finger. Let's not do the handshake. But I'm doing the decision of, like, do I really want to, like, have the, like, have the, conversation about this? Do I want, or is it worth it to just like feel exruciating pain for like

seven seconds? And then I can just move on with my life. I would say it's not worth the pain. It's not worth it. And you should maybe remove that as like a barrier. So I should, do you think you guys think I should bring it up or you think I should go lefty? I would either like aggressively lean into the leftiness or just be or be honest. But don't put yourself through unnecessary pain. So here's the problem. And I've actually thought about this too. Because I have played out the like be honest version of this. But actually I think the people, I don't want a stereotype, but the people who have the firmest handshake are also the people who are less likely to sympathize with the idea that I have a broken bone I'm changing my behavior for.

I think that's the only thing I'm realizing is the people who aren't going to squeeze the heck out of my hand are people who I feel comfortable talking in that way. But I just think it's like all of this is like every interaction has this for me right now. I will say in defense of the firm handshake people, I judge people based on their handshakes. Deadfish, hate it. I will judge everything about you. So are you a firm handshaker? Let's shake right now. I'm not. Let's hand. Left hand and show me. Oh, that is. That's a firm handshake. See, imagine if that had happened with your other hand. That would have hurt. That would have legit hurt. And I'm five feet tall. I know. Compensating much. Barbara, our congressional correspondent. What can't you let go of?

Well, I feel like it's gotten less and less area diet as we've gone around the room. And I'm going to, Mine is not political at all, but it is something that's very important to me. The thing that I cannot let go of is heated rivalry. And I am my biggest pet peeve in life, which I think goes even beyond a pet peeve is I hate when people spoil stuff. So worry not, listener. I am not going to spoil anything. I'm just going to say it is the best television show. Miles told me the other day that no matter how many times I repeat it, it doesn't make it more true.

I disagree. You're going to do this right now? You're going to say it. All right, just say it. I think it is the best show that I have ever seen on television. It's six episodes. I highly recommend it. My sister and I watched it when we were having like a little sister trip together

and it wasn't enough to watch it once. We watched it like multiple times. I just spent kind of like maybe too much money the other night on some merch. I just think that in a time where there isn't a lot of widespread joy, we have to seek it out. And so I recommend this, and I just want to say thank you to Jacob Tierney, the creator, writer, and director who has brought so much joy in my. Now it just feels like you're just trying to fish for something. I don't know if you're hoping to like meet it.

There's nothing to get. I don't know. I'm just like, why are you, that's now it's getting weird, Barbara. What are you hoping for it comes from this? Oh, I just, well, there's already a season two coming. So I'm already happy. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. If you like this podcast, I just want to remind everyone, please hit the follow button so you make sure you don't miss an episode. And you can come back in here. Barbara, talk about Heated Rivalry Season 2. You won't want to miss it. I mean, please give me my own podcast just to talk about it. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.

I'm Jimena Bustillo, and I cover immigration policy. I'm Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress for now. Our executive producer is Mathony Maturi. Our editor is Rachel Bay. Our producers are Casey Morel and Brea Suggs. And thanks to Christianev Callmer. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.