The NPR Politics Podcast - Senate Dems demand immigration enforcement reforms before funding DHS

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Congress may be headed toward a partial government shutdown. After a federal immigration officer fatally shot Alex Pretti last weekend in Minneapolis, Senate Democrats say they won’t vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security without changes to how the federal government enforces immigration laws. We discuss what Democrats want, what Republicans are offering, and the political risks of another government shutdown. This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional reporter Sam Gringlas, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and 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

Valentine's Day is coming up and the perfect gift for the NPR lover in your life is waiting at the NPR shop. From cozy sweaters and mugs made for slow mornings to our tiny desk hoodie, there's something for every NPR fan. Each purchase supports public media and the journalism you love. Find something meaningful at shopnpr.org. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast for Tuesday, January 27th. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Sam Greenglass. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, Senior Political Editor and Correspondent. And we are recording this at 1.10 p.m. Eastern Time. And today on the show, Congress may be headed toward a partial government shutdown.

Last week, it seemed like lawmakers were on track to approve a package of bipartisan spending bills ahead of a government funding deadline at the end of the month. But that all changed after federal immigration officers killed 37-year-old Alex Preti on Saturday. Senate Democrats now say, They will not vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security without major changes to the bill. And that puts all of the other remaining funding measures in peril, too. So, Sam, what are Democrats asking for? Yeah, so Democrats think there is an opportunity here to use the funding bill to rein in federal immigration tactics. They're asking for reforms like mandating warrants for immigration arrests, prohibiting immigration officers from concealing their identity.

requiring officers to use body cameras and to stop raids at churches, hospitals, and schools, there have been a bunch of ideas floated around, and those are just a handful of them. Yeah, I mean, look, Democrats, which seems to be constant here, are under pressure to do something, especially with these videos of harsh immigration tactics by federal agents and these two lethal shootings in Minneapolis. You know, there's been a lot of political pressure where Democrats are sometimes unfairly labeled as anemic or not able to do very much when, you know, frankly, life in the minority is just really hard. And this is a leverage point.

A government funding bill is a leverage point. Sam, ICE and other immigration enforcement got a huge amount of money last summer in the one big beautiful bill act, you know, President Trump's big signature accomplishment. So how does this fit with that? like withholding funding from Homeland Security, would immigration enforcement really be affected by this fight? Yeah. So that legislation gave ICE an additional $75 billion to use over four years. So even if there is a short-term shutdown here, it is not going to immediately stop this immigration crackdown. Democrats are saying they don't want to give the agency another $10 billion in base funding that's at stake here in this funding bill. But really, this is a question not so much about the funding, but more about a chance to extract some policy concessions that they could see as helping rein in the tactics being used by ICE and Customs and Border Protection right now in Minneapolis and in other cities.

I guess a question I have here is, why not just separate out the Homeland Security funding and then pass everything else? And then it wouldn't be such a major disruption. Yeah, so that is actually exactly what Democrats want to do because otherwise, as you're alluding to there, a vote against Homeland Security funding would also mean a vote against funding for defense, for health, for transportation, and a whole bunch of other government agencies that would otherwise grind to a halt after Friday night

if this funding runs out. You know, in the House, Homeland Security was actually voted on separately from everything else, and that allowed all but seven Democrats to vote no without really sweating that vote so much. But in part to expedite things, the House sent a bunch of funding bills over to the Senate as one mega package. And that was actually not really expected to be a problem in the Senate. And then this shooting on Saturday really upended everything. So far, Republican leadership have said they're not willing to pull these bills apart.

And even if they did, it would require bringing the House back to sign off on all of it again. and the House is in recess until next week, and that's after this funding is expected to lapse. And we know that there's a, you know, a lot of the government will still be operating. But, you know, when you're thinking about things like FEMA funding from Federal Emergency Management Agency, with all of these storms that people are dealing with, certainly a lot of critical funding in there. And it can be dangerous for politics for either side if one side's looking like they're doing something for political purposes when people are dealing with real issues right now. So, Sam, you said that Republicans at this point are not willing to separate out the Homeland

Security bill. Are they offering anything to Democrats? I mean, certainly there have been a number of Republicans in the last 48 hours or so who have voiced concerns about the tactics being used by ICE and other immigration agencies. Yeah. So most of these asks that we've been talking about from Democrats are not actually new, and they were roundly rejected by Republicans during negotiations, but as we've been talking about, Saturday did seem to jolt that debate again and maybe compel some Republicans at least to feel like they need to do something, even if right now that does not seem to be changes to the Homeland Security funding bill. We're hearing Republicans looking at things that they can offer to Democrats outside of the context of this funding debate, things like,

executive orders, maybe a standalone immigration bill. But so far, Democrats are saying those promises are not sufficient and they're not going to back down from their position on withholding their votes for the funding bill. Yeah, I mean, I guess this is the part where we talk about trust. And there's not a lot of it between the White House and congressional Democrats at this point. The White House has repeatedly done things like say that they don't actually have to do what Congress says that has caused Democrats to question whether any deal would be worth the paper it's written on. So how do they work through that? I mean, I think most congressional Democrats will tell you they've been given no real reason to trust the White House. For weeks, the administration was

giving Congress certain assurances about Venezuela. And then, of course, many lawmakers felt blindsided after that operation a couple of weeks ago. And so I think we're going to continue to see Democrats trying to press their case in the public sphere, similar to what we saw in the last shutdown around the health care subsidies. Maybe it doesn't result in policy concessions, but it can keep the issue in the forefront of the public imagination. I think that trust and assurances, as Sam talks about, are critically important to whether or not there is a partial government shutdown because we've seen some movement from the White House, specifically in Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, who had been sort of the face of the immigration operations across the

country. He's not leading those enforcement efforts anymore in Minnesota after these two fatal shootings. We've seen Tom Holman, who Trump has referred to as his, quote, borders are, now supposed to be the person who's more the face of that. So in a normal sort of, you know, political environment, you might have the White House say to Democrats, we're making these changes. Here's tactically what's going to be different. So please pass the funding because it's needed. That might work if you had an environment where there was any trust at all between Democrats and this White House. Yeah. I mean, the thing that just really stands out to me here is a week ago, we were not talking about a partial government shutdown. You know, a week ago, it seemed like

things were almost working and just how quickly that has changed. Sam, does anybody, really want a government shutdown? I mean, I think there's still a lot of heartburn from the last one, which was not very long ago and was a record long 43 days. But you did see a real shift in a very short period of time. Last week, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee was saying that she was going to support this funding package despite, you know, her concerns about federal immigration enforcement tactics. And after the shooting on Saturday, she reversed and said she could no longer support it. You also saw a couple of the House Democrats, the seven who voted in favor of the Homeland Security

funding last week. One of them came out and said he regretted that decision and now sees it as kind of a moral check on the actions of the administration. And then one other thing you see, you know, a handful of Democrats who voted to end the government shutdown last fall, this time say they're willing to risk it because this is so important to try and curb the actions of the administration here. Yeah, we've seen this as a real turning point for a lot of people who might have leaned toward this kind of funding, but also now want closer investigations or to not provide this kind of funding until something tangible changes. And if that means going into a shutdown, Democrats feel like they have the wind at their backs. Of course, there's always going to be

dangers in that kind of thing politically. All right. Well, we are going to take a quick break, and we will have much more on the politics of this in a moment. This message comes from Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit Wise.com. T's and Cs apply. This message comes from Databricks, the data and AI company. AI agents work best when they have the right context, your unique data, your rules, your workflows.

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on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And if you don't want to miss any of our political analysis, make sure you hit the follow button in your favorite podcast app. Sam, on this pod, we have discussed this many times that congressional Republicans are not doing much to put checks on the administration. Why is it that funding seems to be a place where we're seeing the most resistance? Yeah, well, it is really one of the only places that the minority has any real leverage at all. You know, this funding cannot pass the Senate if nearly every Democrat is against it like they are now. and appropriations bills have to get passed or the government shuts down. Also, something I think about going back to when I covered a state legislature, there's this

maxim that budgets are essentially a statement of priorities. And so to me, it makes sense that this is a place where we see these really supercharged fights playing out right now. Domenico, I do want to talk about the political calculation here. Because it isn't just ICE. It's FEMA. It's the TSA. Homeland Security includes a lot of things.

Is there a political risk here for Democrats? Looking at the shutdown last year, Democrats, interestingly, were kind of using addition here to talk about health care, raising that as an issue, which they feel like they adequately did. This time around, we're talking about what usually takes place in these shutdown fights, which is subtraction. Seeing a bill that has something in it that they don't like and that saying, hey, you know, try to pass this thing with this in it, we're going to be against that. And this is, I feel like they feel like they're on even more firm footing, especially with what's been happening in the news. And I think that's the place that we're talking about here for who's going to get the blame, not get the blame, who's going to win on the politics of something like this. That's what Democrats are trying to do.

Certainly there's risk when you have all these other things involved, but that's going to be a messaging effort by Republicans to try to push that blame toward Democrats. And in terms of the politics, something like trying to get a policy change so that ICE agents can't cover their faces. Is that the kind of thing that resonates with the public? Yeah. I mean, clearly overall publicly, you know, people have been saying that they agree with the idea of deporting people who are in the country without legal status, especially criminals in the country without legal status or people convicted of crimes. But they're way less sold on the, idea of how the Trump administration has been carrying out those efforts. They've been against these tactics. They think that the government has gone too far, that they've acted too harshly, and they want to see a lot of those things rolled back. But again, it comes down to trust. Democrats are going to want to be able to see how there can be oversight over an agency like

ICE or the Department of Homeland Security in a more guaranteed way to know that they're not going to wear masks or there will be body cameras and things like that where their training is able to see oversight as well. Sam, I was under the impression that this deadline for the government funding measure, that there was going to be a focus on health care from Democrats because the Obamacare premium support they had been fighting for in the last government shut down. It hasn't happened. There is no deal. So what happened with that? Well, Why is no one talking about that? Yeah, I mean, just as recently as maybe two weeks ago,

a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators were telling reporters that they were feeling very optimistic, that they were getting very close to a deal. One told reporters that they were in the red zone. But those talks have pretty much faltered or come to a halt altogether, in part because of an intractable disagreement over abortion. And while this week may have otherwise served, as a platform for a conversation about these subsidies being expired and talks coming to a halt,

that is really not at the forefront of the conversation right now because we are in a posture of approaching a possible partial government shutdown, which is hinging on a totally different issue immigration enforcement. And so, yeah, Democrats maybe are going to succeed here about vaulting this issue of immigration enforcement into the public consciousness ahead of the midterms, but it might also undercut the point they had of the last shutdown, which is trying to get health care in the public space ahead of the midterms. So, you know, a key question here going forward is, can you keep all these multiple issues up in the air at the same time

and, you know, keep voters engaged in this moment where the news cycles are just moving so fast? Yeah, in other words, the news changes things, right? I mean, the Democrats were able to raise the issue of health care. I think they feel like that issue is still a live one, that they can talk about that, and they're going to have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. But a lot of moderate Republicans are very concerned that an issue like immigration that had been one that was a positive for them that they could run on is now one that they're at risk of losing on because people are talking about ISIS tactics and how the administration is going about conducting these enforcement activities compared to issues of border conditions. or deporting people in the country who've been convicted of crimes, which are more positively viewed with the public.

Back to the shutdown. Is this inevitable at this point? Or do either of you see an off-ramp? Well, I think a key question for me is, do we see any willingness from Republicans to separate out this DHS funding? Or do we maybe see Democrats getting cold feet about a shutdown willing to take some kind of lesser concession? You know, this is basically how the last.

shutdown ended in the fall when a handful of Democrats decided they would accept the promise of a vote on the health subsidies and in turn would vote to reopen the government. That could happen here again. And so I think we're going to have to see who backs down first or else, you know, it is very possible. We'll have at least a short-term lapse in funding. Which sounds like that's the direction we're heading because certainly Democrats don't feel like they can vote for. funding for an agency that's going about business the way they are. And Republicans have not shown much willingness to back down. And when you have that, it's a pretty bad mix. All right. Well, let's leave it there for today. We will definitely be following this closely. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover

the White House. I'm Sam Greenglass. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. World News is changing by the On sources and methods, NPR's National Security podcast, we zoom out to explain shifting alliances, global flashpoints, and what's really happening in places like Iran, Venezuela, Greenland. Our reporters on the ground connect the dots to help you understand a world order changing beneath our feet. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. On Ye Gods with Scott Carter, hear from the faithful. I told my very Catholic mother that she needs to meet Jesus.

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