Senators left Washington Thursday afternoon with little progress on talks to fund the Department of Homeland Security, as Republicans scoffed at Democrats’ demands for restraints on immigration law enforcement agents.

On Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both D-N.Y., released a list of 10 demands they want satisfied before they’d vote to fund DHS.

If Congress does not come to agreement by end of February 13, the Coast Guard, national disaster response teams, and cybersecurity infrastructure could be left defunded.

SENATE AND HOUSE DEMOCRATS ARE UNITED ON REINING IN THE ABUSES OF ICE.

Americans have watched in horror as ICE has terrorized communities across the country.

Federal agents can’t continue to cause chaos in our cities while more Americans are killed. We must rein in ICE.

Here’s… pic.twitter.com/J1eEA203T0

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) February 5, 2026

The demands include prohibiting agents from wearing masks, blocking agents from carrying out deportation activities at several types of “sensitive” locations, and insisting agents “Stop Racial Profiling.”

Additionally, Democrats have suggested requiring judicial warrants to carry out deportations, as opposed to administrative warrants issued by DHS itself.

Senate Republicans scoffed at the list of demands.

“That’s not a serious list that would pass,” Sen. John Husted, R-Ohio, told The Daily Signal.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was similarly dismissive.

“Democrats want to lard up all of these procedures and legislative requirements that will be in law permanently, of course, to effectively prevent ICE and border patrol and other law enforcement agencies from doing their jobs,” Hawley said of Democrat demands.

How Did We Get Here?

It bears noting how Congress ended up in a situation where the only funding bill left to pass is the one Democrats have the most objections about.

Last week, Democrats demanded the homeland security bill be separated from a package of five other funding bills and threatened to tank the whole package unless Republicans obliged them.

Democrats got exactly what they wanted, as the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to proceed to a vote on a package which funded the five departments while providing a two-week funding extension for DHS. 

This bought time for the consideration of further Democrat demands on a bill which already came out of bipartisan negotiations.

Now, Democrats no longer have to support DHS funding in order to get funding for liberal priorities such as maintaining funding for foreign aid and the Department of Education.

Hawley told The Daily Signal he still believes splitting off DHS was the correct approach.

“I mean, as opposed to shutting down the government? I’m opposed to government shutdowns, so I’m glad we’re not in a shutdown,” said Hawley. â€œRight now, everybody’s fully funded, and I hope the Democrats will actually vote for the bill they negotiated.”

Hawley also argued Republicans hold leverage on immigration since “ICE is fully funded” by the party-line budget reconciliation bill passed in July 2025 and told The Daily Signal that another such bill is “certainly available” if necessary.

Coming to a Deal

Husted is hoping Democrats shift the conversation to include discussing how to foster cooperation between local officials and federal immigration agents.

Specifically, Husted called for “getting cooperation between the local and federal officials that when someone is arrested for a DUI or drug trafficking or something like that, that the local officials turn them over to the federal government.”

He continued, “If we can just get that issue solved, I think that Republicans would be willing to consider things that are on their list—at least I would. I’ll speak for myself, but the body camera issue, yeah, that makes sense. … But some of the other things on the list are, like, non-starters, like eliminating the administrative warrant.”

Husted’s remarks are similar to those of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who has argued that any discussion on this matter must include concessions to conservatives.

“Any conversation … has to include a discussion of how to make it safer for our federal law enforcement agents to effectively carry out their duties,” Thune said Monday.

One Democrat whose vote Republicans can likely count on to fund DHS is Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa. 

“Every single Democrat, including myself, thinks there needs to be appropriate changes for ICE,” Fetterman told The Daily Signal.

“Two things must be true: [it’s] not necessary to shut it down, and we have to come up with a way forward,” Fetterman continued. “That’s where I remain, that as a Democrat, it’s wrong to shut our government down.”

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