WASHINGTON – As negotiations ramp up on Capitol Hill to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, Senate Democrats seem to be clinging to a particular word: reforms.
It was a term party leaders used in the context of Immigration and Customs Enforcement nearly two dozen times during a March 24 news conference.
The refrain threw cold water on a new GOP compromise to fund the critical agency — minus ICE's enforcement and removal operations — and end a crisis that has upended air travel across the country.
"Democrats are continuing to push for modest reforms," Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters. "The current Republican offer in front of us does not do that."
After a group of Senate Republicans got President Donald Trump on board with stripping out some pieces of ICE funding from a must-pass appropriations bill, a nascent sense of optimism set in overnight. For the first time in nearly six weeks, lawmakers started to suggest the shutdown could come to an end before or shortly after they're scheduled to go on a two-week Easter recess.
