Why Democrats have little leverage to reform ICE
4/17/202627 min
Most of the Department of Homeland Security has been without funding for two months, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement got billions of dollars from last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. We discuss how that funding insulates the agency from congressional oversight and how a proposal from congressional Republicans could further limit accountability. Plus, the significance of another failed vote to rein in the administration’s war powers.
This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, immigration policy correspondent Ximena Bustillo, congressional reporter Sam Gringlas and White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Miles Parks· Host0:31
[upbeat music] Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks, I cover voting.
Sam Greenglass· Co-host0:40
I'm Sam Greenglass, I cover Congress.
Ximena Bustillo· Co-host0:42
And I'm Jimena Bustillo, and I cover immigration.
Miles Parks· Host0:44
And it's Friday, so let's catch up on some of the political news we haven't already talked about on the pod, starting with an ongoing fight over funding at the Department of Homeland Security. Sam, this is an agency that has been without funding for more than 60 days now. Can you give us the latest?
Sam Greenglass· Co-host0:59
Yeah, I feel like a lot of people maybe have forgotten that this agency is still shut down and that this fight is ongoing, and it very much is. So there was an agreement in the Senate, at least, to fund all of DHS except for immigration enforcement agencies ICE and Border Patrol. This passed the Senate, but it has been sitting in the House for the last three weeks amid pushback from inside the House Republican caucus, who don't like this idea of carving