Dems Reject GOP ICE Funding, Shutdown Drags
Senate Democrats officially rejected a Republican offer to partially fund the Department of Homeland Security while setting aside specific appropriations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known colloquially as ICE. This rejection means the partial government shutdown has now persisted for 39 consecutive days, impacting thousands of federal workers and critical services. Mainstream outlets,
like The Hill, present this as a straightforward partisan squabble over agency funding, neatly sidestepping the uncomfortable truths about the funding itself. Their framing suggests a typical legislative impasse, a failure to compromise, without interrogating the historical context or the real-world implications beyond Capitol Hill. This neatly omits the consistent bipartisan consensus when it
comes to expanding the carceral state, particularly its enforcement arm at the border and within communities. For decades, both Republican and Democratic administrations have overseen a dramatic expansion of immigration enforcement. For example, the Secure Fence Act of 2006, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, authorized hundreds of miles of additional fencing along the US-Mexico border,
a policy that continues to fuel the very 'crisis' politicians now decry. The fiscal year 2023 budget allocated over $28 billion to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and ICE combined, a figure that dwarfs the entire budget of countries these migrants originate from. What this protracted shutdown reveals is not a genuine disagreement over human rights, but rather a contest over who gets to dictate