After weeks of refusing, Republicans caved to Dem demands to fund DHS without a blank check for ICE and CBP. [View all]

Last edited Fri Mar 27, 2026, 10:09 AM - Edit history (1)

Chuck Schumer @SenSchumer 1h
After weeks of negotiations, Republicans caved to our demands to fund DHS without a blank check for ICE and CBP.

My full statement below:



House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on MS NOW’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, where he emphasized that while the Trump administration is brutalizing American citizens and entering a reckless war of choice, House Democrats remain committed to making life more affordable for the American people.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Yes, you know, what’s interesting, Lawrence, in their One Big Ugly Bill, which, of course, ripped away Medicaid from at least 14 million Americans and literally took food from the mouths of hungry children, seniors and veterans because of the fact that they enacted the largest cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance in American history. They gave $191 billion to DHS. 10 billion of that can be used any way that Donald Trump and the Department of Homeland Security wants. And so over the last 41 days, effectively, Donald Trump has chosen not to pay TSA when ordering Republicans to shut down the Department of Homeland Security. And so he’s always had this ability, but clearly he wanted to hold TSA agents and the American people hostage across the country while creating chaos at airports, trying to get Democrats to back away from our position.

House and Senate Democrats over the last several weeks have repeatedly made clear that we need to reopen every other aspect of the Department of Homeland Security, TSA and FEMA and the Coast Guard and our cybersecurity professionals, every other aspect of the Department of Homeland Security, other than, of course, ICE, which needs to be brought under control. And we’ve also made clear we are not going to fund Donald Trump’s extreme and violent mass deportation machine. But Republicans who control the House, the Senate and the presidency made the determination that they want to hold TSA agents hostage and forced them for weeks now to work without pay when Donald Trump at any point over the last 41 days could have made clear that they need to get paid. Thankfully, we’ve now compelled him to do just that.

Donald Trump has said, don’t do anything. We’re dealing with an affordability crisis in the United States of America. We’ve got this reckless war of choice that we’ve got to end, that Donald Trump has gotten into. They’re spending billions of dollars to drop bombs in the Middle East, but are unwilling to spend a dime to actually make life more affordable for the American people. And then on top of all of that, he’s trying to jam the so-called SAVE America Act down the throats of the American people. This is voter suppression on steroids, and it doesn’t have the pass—votes to pass the Senate, and of course, in the House, was strongly opposed by Democrats, and we will continue to do so. We’re going to do everything we need to do to make sure, Lawrence, that there’s a free and fair election in November. And when that happens, Democrats are taking back control of the House of Representatives, and Senate Democrats are on a path to do the same thing.

Effectively, he was saying, I don’t really care about the hardship that is being inflicted on the American people. We’ve seen gas prices are skyrocketing out of control in an environment where people are already struggling to live paycheck to paycheck. Many Americans can’t thrive and can barely survive. Donald Trump could care less about it, and he said that in his own words today from the White House. At the same period of time, apparently, he could care less about the fact that thousands of troops are being put into harm’s way in this reckless war of choice. And American lives, heroes, patriots, have already lost their lives up until this point. And yet, Donald Trump doesn’t care.

https://jeffries.house.gov/2026/03/26/leader-jeffries-on-ms-now-donald-trump-at-any-point-over-the-last41-days-could-have-made-clearthat-tsa-needs-to-get-paid/