Future Implications for Congressional Funding

Hey there, it's the MPR Politics podcast. I'm Miles Parks, I cover voting. I'm Sam Greenlass, I cover Congress. And I'm Himana Bustillo and I cover the Department of Homeland Security. And today on the show, immigration enforcement funding will not be an issue on Capitol Hill through the rest of President Trump's term. That's because Congress just approved seventy billion dollars to fund IC and border patrol for the next three years Not a single Democrat voted for this bill. But Sam, I want to talk process here first because I am not an expert in congressional funding policy, but it did seem important that this did not go through the normal processes to happen. Can you explain it? Appropriations is typically a pretty bipartisan process. It requires buy in from both sides. The two sides spend months hammering out together, funding packages that are really detailed for a whole host of fal agencies But this played out differently using a tool called budget reconciliation. And what that means is it allows Republicans to circumvent Democrats to muscle through this funding totally unilaterally. And that is a huge departure for how agencies are normally funded. Got it. And then what about the timing? because that seems notable to me too talk funding agencies as part of a budget, it's usually annual process. This is three years. How strange is that? As you mentioned, appropriations are usually annual and that is really purposeful because it allows Congress to exercise what's called power of the purse. Every year, agencies have to come in front of Congress and ask for more funding, and that is the key opportunity for Congress for lawmakers to exercise oversight to ask how this money will be spent, how the agencies are operating. And when agencies are funded for three years, that really takes Congress out of this process. Okay. Well, then Himena, what do we know about where this money is going to be spent? If this is going to be a three year thing, what do we know about where this money iss going Right, So it's seventy billion dollars and thirty eight billion doars of that is just to ice. That is a little over three times the last annual amount that was approved by Congress, which was ten billion do. Lawmakers justify this large number as it's ten billionars per year plus inflation accounting. So that's how you get to thirty eightars That being said, when you break this down even more, seeven billion do is for homeomeland security investigations to do like human trafficking work and investigations. and thirty one billion is for immigration enforcement work. And so that is everything ranging from hiring more attorneys to litigate in immigration court, to buying technology like body cameras. And there just really isn't a lot of specificity on how much money of that thirty one billion should go to attorneys or should go to supporting local law enforcement or should go to body cameras. And so we see this kind of across the board. Border patrol gets twenty two billion dollars moreore than half of that is specifically for immigration enforcement work, but you know, how is that going to get dollled down and spent? We don't really see these these stipulations. And this was a big issue when these agencies got a bunch of money through the big, beautiful bill. that a lot of people talked about the lack of transparency or oversight into where the money was going is it sounds like a fairly similar situation. Yeah, it really is. And the one big beautiful bill was also done through reconciliation last summer. One thing to really note is that was not a budget bill like that provided a chunk of money over the course of several years, but it was not supposed to be the normal budget. So kind of the way that I have explained it is Think about, know, you get your normal paycheck every two weeks or every month, and then maybe you get a bonus from your employer. That bonus was the one big beautiful bill, but the agency still needs its regular paycheck every year to spend money on paychecks, on contractors, on utilities, on kind of all the normal things you budget for in a monthly budget So they haven't had that normal paycheck We've seen a little bit about the implications of giving agencies this big pot of largely unrestricted funds, because after the two killings in Minneapolis of U. S. citizens by federal immigration agents, Democrats threatened to withhold their votes for more funding for these agencies didn't really change how these agencies operated because they were insulated from that pressure having all of this additional money already to work with. The threat of Congress not giving them additional funding really didn't shift how they were operating. And this was a risk for Democrats because normally when we have government shutdowns, it's you know everyone's concerned about whether or not they're going get their snap money, whether national parks are going to be open, like there's this very like public facing risk to the average American But with that money, immigration officers and agents got to still continue being paid and got to still continue doing most of their work. There were people, especially like admin folks and investigators and things like that that did not get paid for chunks of time. But you know the average person doesn't see that. And we are still seeing immigration arrests on the street. You know, we are still seeing the administration tout its initiatives. So it was really easy for things to just continue as normal. And President Trump noted when he was signing the bill today, that Democrats had been attempting to withhold this annual funding as part of the request for reforms. Let's listen to this For more than one hundred days, congressional Democrats tried to block all funding for the Department of Homeland Security and reprehensible attempt to throw open the borders of the United States of America They want to drink straight back to chaos and crime So in the end, no Democrats voted for this three year funding package. It's still passed Democrats get anything they've been asking for for now almost six months. I mean, not really. So let's kind of go back to those asks. You know Democrats didn't just want money for body cameras. They wanted a mandate that every immigration officer wear a body camera. That was pretty bipartisan they didn't get that they wanted more limits on the use of what kind of warrants immigration officers use to enter people's homes they didn't get that. And then they definitely didn't get a lot more of the partisan asks like limits on facial coverings or you know even some of the areas that immigration officers could go in like schools and hospitals and churches. they definitely didn't get any of that. So you know It didn't really seem to be any needle really moved. I will say this gets a little complicated, but back in April, the Congress did pass a measure to fund Most of DHS with the exception of IC and border patrol. And in that bill, there were some funds for more body cameras, stipulations that there should be congressional oversight of detention facilities and money for deescalation training, which Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin has said has already started, like crowd control training like for officers that are being onboarded. So, you know, that's something but it's really not what Democrats went into this asking for And I put this to one of Minnesota's Democratic senators Tina Smith yesterday just before this final vote, which seemed to kind of mark a conclusion of this months long debate over immigration. And not only are Democrats not walking away from this with this list of reforms that they've been asking for, they're almost in a worse position because not only are these agencies funded for one year, they're funded for three years with few strings attached And the public's attention has really shifted away from this immigration fight that really captivated Capitol Hill for weeks. Here's what Smith said. This is the way it goes. Americans have really busy, complicated lives. They're trying to figure out how to pay rent and buy groceries, but what they saw, I don't think they're going to forget it That's what I mean when I say we've lost these votes, but that doesn't mean that we've lost the fight So Smith is kind of saying there that yes, they did not get these reforms, but voters are going to remember how the Trump administration was carrying out immigration enforcement when they head to the ballot box this fall. I mean, let's play that out then. if that is the case. assume then that Democrats do are able to retake the House or retake the House and the Senate Is there anything they can do at that point then to exert some level of oversight over these agencies? It's very limited, at least through the appropriations process because once again, IC and border patrol are funded twenty twenty nine fiscal year. And so there will not be this additional opportunity at least through the funding process for Democrats to reassert Congress's power of the purse here and push changes on these agencies. For people who aren't familiar with the appropriations process, as Sam mentioned, they do this for every federal agency. And as a part of that process the heads of every single federal agency come before their specific committee and they get bombarded with questions about, you know How are you spending your money on this? You're asking for money for this new police force or this new department, or you want to expand this. tellell us about it. Why? And that act of asking questions is oversight everyone says is lost. Now, I will also emphasize that there's a lot of agency level oversight that was also lost in this process. So Gone by the wayside is DHS lost funding for its own internal oversight offices that were previously congressionally mandated and stood up. The funding didn't get passed in the April Bill and it's not passed in this one. And so that reduces the level of internal oversight mechanisms within these offices at a time in which a lot of immigration advocates are concerned about the number of deaths in detention facilities, the conditions in detention facilities, access to medical care food that broader question. And so you're losing this ability of Congress to pull people in to answer questions, but then Externally, you know, immigration attorneys don't have anyone to turn to anymore either on the day to day on the ground work. when they have clients that are detained or that are in these processes in these facilities. All right, a lot more to dig into. Let's take a quick break and more in just a second And we're back So Sam, we've used the word unprecedented a couple times already in this podcast. This feels like a thing that Republicans aren't even arguing in terms of how this process went down. Senate majority Leer John Thune said this reconciliation bill is not like any other we've done before That making any Republicans uncomfortable? I'm thinking about vulner Republicans, I'm thinking about Republicans who have expressed concerns about coequal branches of government. It's anyone voicing any dissent here I mean, look, some Republicans have said this is not ideal. This is not how this is supposed to work, but they are blaming Democrats saying that they really left them no choice. It was Democrats who messed with the normal appropriations process by refusing to fund these agencies and there was no other path for them to take here. Here's House Budget chair, Representative Jodody Erington of Texas, and he put a finer point on that We're attempting here to fund Iice and CBP at last year's operating budget plus inflation. That's all we're talking about So this is not a slush fun And we're going do it not for one year, but for three years so that we don't end up here again And so in the House, no Republicans voted against this measure in the Senate. There was just one, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski. and she expressed some real concerns about the precedent this was setting that this reduces Congress's ability to apply checks and balances, not only for the rest of this administration, but potentially into the next one as well. and that instead partartisan senators hashing out an appropriations process every year like usually happens Lawmakers are going to resort to this same procedure again and again I mean, one thing I am a little confused by is This was always a possibility that Republicans could just muscle this thing through Why did we go through all of this in the first place? Why did this take until June if this was always an option? Well, early on, there was some bipartisan interest in taking action on this list of potential changes to immigration enforcement. I mean, these two killings in Minneapolis really captivated the nation's attention and there was feeling even among some Republicans that something had to be done to address these issues. And so for a while, there were active negotiations happening between Democrats and the White House, But once those negotiations faltered and Democrats and Republicans were still dug in on either side, that is when Republicans said, hey, we could try and use this novel way to cut Democrats out of this process and get these agencies und We've seen other presidencies use reconciliation as a tool to fund their priorities. like the Biden administration did that with infrastructure and climate change policy. But that wasn't the budget. that wasn't the annual funding for those agencies. so you know, to Sam's point, there was this original belief that there deal. White House was at the table, agencies were at the table. Democrats and Republicans were at the table. So something like reconciliation would have probably been considered extreme six months ago One other reason that this just took so long to finally happen is because using reconciliation requires Republican unity, almost completely. And there were several moments when this process really got tripped up over funding for Trump's ballroom. That was originally part of the reconciliation plan was eventually stripped out after pushback from some Republicans. And then in the final thrust over a totally separate issue, this anti weaponization fund that the Trump administration had been proposing to potentially compensate people who claim to have been wrongfully targeted by the federal government. There was Republican uproar over that and interest in trying to attach some measure that would prohibit that kind of fund from existing in this immigration funding legislation. And so it was these conflicts within the Republican Party that also slowed this process down as well Hyan can I just ask what you're hearing from advocates for the immigration community, I guess, I have to imagine that They are pretty concerned about this lack of oversight or what this is going to mean for the next couple of years. Yeah, there is a lot of concern. I think the funding for three years with those limited stipulations on exactly what and how has raised a lot of alarms. One thing that also usually goes into these appropriations bills is very specific that the agencies have to provide, like you'll see language like within sixty days of the enactment of this act, there must be a report on body cameras, you know, I'm oversplifying, but you know, there there is additional information that the agencies are required to provide publicly or to Congress. And then I think there is just broader concern about this being a unifying endorsement of President Trump's immigration agenda and you know basically cutting a broad blank check to say, you know, these are your goals. You have said this is what you're going to do, go forth and do it and secure it. And, you know, there are a few interesting things in this bill, like a hundred fifty million dollars provision that is specifically for enforcement in jurisdictions that are not cooperative, quote unquote. I saw that. I have no idea what that means. Very few people do, but essentially, it seems like it is funding specifically for immigration enforcement in areas where local law enforcement already doesn't closely coordinate with DHS or has the authority to do their own immigration enforcement Sam, I want to ask a big picture question about Congress though too, because now that this genie is out of the bottle a little bit in terms of Republicans using reconciliation in this way, Are we expecting this to happen again this year? consonsidering the fact that Democrats could potentially retake the House or the Senate and muck up their ability to fund their priorities? I guess, is this the end of this story There is certainly a contingent of Republicans who would like to see a third round of reconciliation before the midterms in part to give Republicans some more to run on ahead of really tight races potentially to address cost of living issues, affordability that we know voters have top of mind as they head to the polls this fall. But there's also interest in reconciliation to fund some priorities that might just be more controversial for Congress to take on through the normal appropriations process. We're already hearing in hearings this week on the hill, the Pentagon asking for more money or banking on more money through the reconciliation process that they don't think they'd be able to get through the normal channels We've heard some top appropriators in the Senate though really cast doubts on whether there will be additional reconciliation meeasures this year in part because it would be very difficult for Republicans to unify around even more complicated legislation than this fairly straightforward one to deal with immigration enforcement that ended up in all kinds of tangles because of conflicts within the party. So while we don't know whether another reconciliation is actually going to happen before the midterms, it is for sure that these fights over funding are going to continue All right, well let's leave it there for today I'm Miles Bark, I cover voting. I'm Sam Gringlass, I cover Congress. And I'm Hen Bustio and I cover the Department of Homeland Security. And thank you for listening to the MPR Politics podcast