Democrats Mostly Win 2024 DHS Budget Battle

This year’s spending bill for homeland security includes much — but not all — of what Democrats and their GOP establishment allies want.

The 1012-page bill provides “over a billion dollars more for assisting mass migration, it continues to give grants to NGOs [Non-Government Organizations] … to feed and shelter and provide other services to illegal aliens,” said Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.

The bill may be approved today without much time for debate

The underlying political problem is that “there’s too much fear [in the GOP] about getting blamed for a government shutdown — but especially in an election year … so Democrats keep winning this game,” she noted.

Pro-establishment and pro-migration Republicans hold the balance of power in the evenly divided Senate and House. They can usually ally with Democrats to frustrate populist and conservative goals.

For example, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La) is an immigration hawk — but he is also facing a “discharge petition” pushed by pro-business Republicans who are working hand-in-hand with Democrats. The bipartisan petition is being used to push a giveaway migration bill through the House — but may be deflated by the GOP establishment’s win in 2024 funding bill.

This alliance allows Democrats and business-first Republicans to continue the flow of migrants into Americans’ workplaces and communities.

For example, the Department of Homeland Security got at least $650 million for NGOs to transport, shelter, and feed migrants in Democratic-run cities. The Department of State got at least $4 billion, some of which will be given to the NGOs that help global migrants reach the U.S. border.

“There are so many pots of money going to these NGOs through DHS, the State Department, the Justice Department, and [the Department of] Health and Human Services [because] there is a whole infrastructure pipeline — a very secretive one — that does the logistics for all this,” she said.

Similarly, the bill doubles the annual inflow of H-2B visa workers into blue-collar jobs along the East Coast. The bill is backed by many House Republicans and by multiple GOP Senators, including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me), who is the “vice chair” of the mostly establishment-minded Senate appropriations committee.

The bill includes no curbs on the white-collar visa programs — such as the H-1B, L-1, J-1, H4EAD, OPT, or TN programs  — that import workers to replace and subordinate millions of U.S. professionals in a wide variety of Fortune 500 corporate jobs.

In general, GOP legislators have little power to make President Joe Biden’s DHS do anything — but have the potential power to deny funding needed by the agency to do things.

Yet the GOP establishment is eager to help donors by importing more workers, consumers, and rents. Democrats, meanwhile, are eager to help donors with more migrants but also want more migrants to serve as clients for government-provided poverty services, and — eventually — as voters for Democratic politicians.

A GOP president might — or might not — help get a better outcome in 2025, Ries said.

But there are some consolation prizes for the GOP’s populist wing. For example, the bill does not include some of the Democrats’ high-priority issues, such as funds to hire at least 3,000 people to operate fast-track asylum approvals at the U.S. border. The bill also trims the White House’s “Alternatives to Detention” catch-and-release program.

The modest successes come after the populists’ historic win against the bipartisan pro-migration border bill. The bill was pushed in February by Sen. Mitch McConnel (R-Ky) and his deputy, Sen. James Lankford (R-Ok), but failed because it would have sharply raised the inflow of migrants into Americans’ jobs and voting booths.

The GOP’s appropriations chiefs did not tout any immigration policy successes in the 2024 spending bill, partly because their top priority is to get the money out the door.

In contrast, Democrats gloated that they had defeated populist GOP priorities:

The bill rejects harmful Republican policy riders that would have reduced funding and access to asylum processes, limited participation in the Alternatives to Detention Program, prohibited the use of the CBP One application to assist with parole processes, restricted essential diversity and inclusion initiatives, and more.

Moreover, the Democrats won several policy battles that are not a top concern to GOP appropriators.

For example, the bill allows three offices of pro-migration “civil rights” lawyers to nitpick local sheriffs who use the important 287(g) program to put foreign criminals on a fast track to federal deportation.

Many Americans are already murdered by criminal migrants who cycle in and out of local jails while Biden’s deputies block enforcement efforts. For example, the man who allegedly murdered Georgia nursing student Laken Riley was arrested and released at least once.

The bill also tightens field oversight of border agents and ICE agents, so helping pro-migration lawyers file threatening lawsuits:

The bill funds the DHS body-worn camera program across several agencies, including CBP, ICE, and the United States Secret Service, and video monitoring at DHS detention facilities. This funding will strengthen accountability and transparency efforts.

The Democrats also are still demanding that Congress provide more than $10 billion in off-the-books “emergency funding” to operate their migration pipeline during the 2024 campaign year. That spending package will be debated separately.

GOP legislators “are just acting the same old way — and we’re going to have more Laken Riley’s because of it,” said Ries.