House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Monday said House Democrats hold a “diversity of perspectives” on whether to support a Senate-passed funding bill that would restore funding for multiple agencies through September while extending Department of Homeland Security funding for two weeks.
Several parts of the government entered a partial shutdown just after midnight Saturday after lawmakers failed to send a funding measure to President Donald Trump before the deadline. The shutdown is affecting the departments covered by the Senate legislation, including DHS, and has triggered shutdown procedures and furloughs for non-essential employees.
House leaders expected a full House vote on the Senate bill on Tuesday.
Jeffries said Sunday’s caucus meeting included differing views on how to handle the Senate plan, including the two-week DHS extension.
“We had a caucus meeting yesterday. There was a diversity of perspectives about how to move forward on this particular bill, but it’s the five bipartisan bills where there’s strong Democratic support,“ he said. ”And of course, a variety of perspectives as it relates to the two-week continuing resolution, the two-week funding freeze, related to DHS.”
He said the issue would be discussed again in a House Democratic leadership meeting Monday afternoon and at a caucus meeting Tuesday morning.
Jeffries also suggested House Democrats were not deeply involved in the negotiations that produced the Senate’s two-week DHS extension, saying he had been in close communication with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) but had not seen a firm plan for the changes he described as essential.
“ICE and the Department of Homeland Security need to dramatically change,” Jeffries said. “And absent that, then a full-year appropriations bill is in deep trouble.”
Jeffries has laid out a list of conditions he said the public is demanding, including independent investigations if officers break the law.
“The American people want to see the masks come off,” he said. “The American people want to see body cameras turned on and mandated. The American people want to see judicial warrants.”
Republican leaders have said they may need to pass the measure with mostly Republican votes. Mike Johnson told NBC News’s “Meet the Press” that he expected the House to pass a rule for the bill “mostly on our own,” after a conversation with Jeffries. He said he was confident the shutdown would end with a Tuesday vote.
Jeffries said it was “hard to imagine a scenario” where Democrats would provide votes to advance the rule, arguing Republicans should carry the procedural vote themselves. He noted House Democrats also oppose other items bundled into the rule.
Some Democrats have publicly said they plan to vote no on the underlying bill.
Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) said in a post on X that he and other progressives do not support “another cent to ICE until we stop the chaos and the lawlessness.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said in a post on X after the Senate vote, “I am not just a no, but a firm no.” He added over the weekend that he planned to urge House Democrats to oppose the Senate bill.
Trump has urged Congress to pass the compromise, writing on Truth Social on Jan. 29 that Republicans and Democrats had come together to fund “the vast majority of the Government” through September while extending DHS, and calling for a bipartisan “yes” vote.
