Democrats may be celebrating Kristi Noem’s ouster from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but they are still digging their heels in against ending the agency’s weekslong shutdown.
‘It’s not like Kristi Noem was the one who was involved in negotiating anything. She was a corrupt lackey. So, we were dealing with the White House before, and we’re going to continue to deal with the White House at this point,’ House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters during a news conference Thursday.
That point has since been echoed by several other Democratic lawmakers despite Noem’s firing apparently being one of their key demands in exchange for allowing DHS to be fully funded through the remainder of this fiscal year.
Congressional Democrats have maintained a unified blockade of funding for the agency in pursuit of stringent reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Democrats and the White House have been negotiating, but neither side has agreed to compromise terms.
And the shutdown is now guaranteed to drag on for another month, given that the House will be out for a week and the Senate is unable to advance any DHS funding legislation.
‘I’m waiting for them to give us an offer, make us an offering as to what it is that you want us to vote on,’ Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., said. ‘I want to see what the guardrails are before I vote on this funding. … I don’t want us to have masked individuals in my community. I want to see body cameras. I want you to identify yourself when you’re making an arrest.’
Many Democrats aren’t sure that Noem’s chosen replacement, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., would be the answer to the changes they want.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., suggested to Fox News Digital that he was skeptical that any replacement for Noem would be more effective in the discussions given they still have to answer to Trump and his policies.
And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., plans to block Mullin’s confirmation in a bid to extract Democrats’ long-sought reforms to ICE.
‘The rot runs deep,’ Schumer said. ‘If the president wants accountability, he must do more than fire one official — he must end the violence and rein in ICE.’
Republican leaders in the House and Senate both tried again to advance a DHS funding bill that was released as part of wider bipartisan government funding discussions earlier this year.
The bill passed the House with all but four Democrats voting ‘no,’ even hours after Noem’s ouster.
In the Senate, news of Noem’s firing erupted as another push by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to pass a full-year funding bill began. Like their colleagues in the House, Senate Democrats were unfazed by the change and once more blocked the legislation.
When asked if he believed removing Noem from the equation would make a difference, Thune said, ‘It should.’
‘The Democrats have been complaining about that forever,’ Thune said. ‘And, so, this, to me, is a huge development, I would think, in the funding conversation, and hopefully they’ll get more earnest about coming to the table and trying to get a deal. I mean, we should find out soon enough.’
For now, Senate Democrats appear firmly entrenched in their position, even with their colleague Mullin taking the helm of the agency.
‘No, I don’t think it makes any difference,’ Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., told Fox News Digital. ‘They have got to put in the reforms that we need.’
Mullin, who has staunchly opposed the stringent reforms Democrats seek for the agency, said he would meet with Schumer in a bid to earn his and every Senate Democrat’s vote during his forthcoming confirmation process.
‘I’m not going to get into, you know, a tit-for-tat, but if they have real concerns, I’m going to listen to it. I’m going to see if it’s practical,’ Mullin said. ‘But nothing’s going to prevent me from doing my job. I’m going to enforce the policies and the laws that Congress has passed, and we’re going to protect our homeland.’
But not all Democrats were pessimistic.
Asked by Fox News Digital whether Noem’s firing would help advance DHS funding talks, Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., said, ‘I think it allows us to reopen the negotiations.’