LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Top Republicans in Congress have a plan to end the Department of Homeland Security's shutdown. It involves funding immigration enforcement through the rest of President Trump's term without Democrats' votes. But nearly three weeks after offering that proposal, the department is still shut down for a record-breaking two months. NPR congressional reporter Sam Gringlas is here to talk about why that funding is stuck and how the plan could undermine a key congressional power. Good morning, Sam.
SAM GRINGLAS, BYLINE: Hey there, Leila.
FADEL: So what's in this plan to fund DHS?
GRINGLAS: So the idea was that Republicans and Democrats could get behind funding most of DHS if you could just set aside Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Republicans could then vote on their own to fund those two agencies separately using a tool known as budget reconciliation. And, Leila, what's important to know here is that wouldn't require votes from Democrats.
FADEL: OK. Interesting. I didn't even know about that. This was agreed to three weeks ago, so why has nothing happened?
GRINGLAS: Yeah. The Senate did pass this funding for DHS minus ICE and Border Patrol, but that measure has been sitting in the House for three weeks now. Speaker Mike Johnson has been on and off again about his support for the plan because he's been getting pushback from within his own caucus for carving out immigration enforcement.
FADEL: Now, DHS is shut down in the first place because Democrats refuse to give more money to ICE and Border Patrol without reforms to how officers operate. So, Sam, how is the immigration crackdown still going on if DHS is shut down?
GRINGLAS: The short answer is that ICE and Border Patrol still have billions of dollars at their disposal. And that is thanks to Republican lawmakers who used that same party-line maneuver we were just talking about last summer to give ICE $75 billion with very few strings attached. To put that in context, ICE usually has a $10 billion annual budget. I talked about this with John Sandweg. He was acting director of ICE under President Obama. And he told me that regular appropriations come with specifics about how money should be spent, but that $75 billion was almost like a blank check.
JOHN SANDWEG: If you basically fund the agency for multi years to where it frees them of any concerns regarding the appropriators, the agency is going to act in a way where they just don't care what those members of Congress think.
GRINGLAS: And now Republicans are gearing up to do that. Again, they say it's Democrats who are subverting Congress' responsibility to fund the government and believe that Democrats may never vote to fund ICE or Border Patrol.
FADEL: I mean, just listening to Sandweg there, I mean, what would funding agencies this way mean for our system of checks and balances?
GRINGLAS: University of Michigan law professor Sam Bagenstos says this is just the latest way that Congress has relinquished its constitutional power of the purse. The president has refused to spend money that Congress has appropriated, like for foreign aid, and has spent money that Congress has not, like to pay DHS workers despite the shutdown. Bagenstos says if Congress does not stand up to reclaim its prerogative here...
SAM BAGENSTOS: Then we have a really great risk of executive branch tyranny, and I don't see why every executive in the future isn't going to follow some playbook like this.
FADEL: Executive branch tyranny. In the more immediate term, though, what's ahead for DHS funding?
GRINGLAS: Well, ICE and CBP officials are on the Hill today testifying about their budget request for next year. That's how this process normally works. But that whole request may be totally moot as Republicans look at giving these two agencies blanket funding without input from Democrats, not just for this year or next year but until Trump leaves the White House.
FADEL: That's NPR congressional reporter Sam Gringlas. Thank you so much, Sam.
GRINGLAS: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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