WASHINGTON — For the Gateway rail project below the Hudson River, more than a half-billion dollars. For community programs around New Jersey, hundreds of millions. And for transit agencies, money to help offset costs during the FIFA World Cup in the summer.
That funding and more will be bound for New Jersey — if Congress can reboot the government.
The path to end a partial shutdown became more complicated Monday after a hard-right House Republican bloc objected to a deal that cleared the Senate last week. Their opposition came despite urging from President Donald Trump to support the agreement.
Separately, some Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee, including Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-10th), said on Sunday they wouldn’t support the deal.
Central to the impasse is the budget for and day-to-day operations of the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and also Customs and Border Protection. Both agencies in recent weeks have drawn public criticism for their nationwide deployment of agents who have arrested and detained undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike.
Roxbury site
The second Trump administration has expanded its ICE footprint into New Jersey, first by reopening Delaney Hall in Newark, a detention site run by private-prison firm GEO Group, and approving ICE and Border Protection to use Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst for immigration operations. It also has sent Homeland Security agents into the state for immigration raids, such as the one at a Morristown laundromat.
Homeland Security has deployed agents to highly visible operations in left-leaning cities, like Minneapolis, where Border Patrol officers shot and skilled Alex Pretti, a nurse who had been observing Trump administration protests. In New Jersey, it’s considering Roxbury Township for an ICE detention center.
Republicans in Congress, when they wrote their signature domestic legislation last year, predicted a public backlash to hardline anti-immigration tactics, so they allocated $178 billion for Homeland Security. That money, now in the department’s hands, is in addition to annual appropriations. Among that funding one-shot is about $75 billion for ICE, including $45 billion to expand detention capacity, and roughly $65 billion for Border Patrol.
The money is guaranteed into 2029, effectively making it impossible for Congress to defund operations amid calls from Democratic lawmakers and immigration activists.
Congress should take back the money that ICE and Border Patrol received under the Republican bill, according to a letter dated Sunday to fellow Democrats from McIver and her colleagues on the committee that oversees Homeland Security.
“The money provided through [the bill] is sufficient to fund both agencies for years with few, if any, guardrails,” they wrote. “It is too dangerous to allow this money to continue to be spent unchecked.”
Agents should be pulled from Minneapolis, the members wrote, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem must be removed and Congress must “rein in the sweeping surveillance systems DHS is using to crack down on protestors and the President’s political opponents.”
ICE deserves no more federal money, McIver said in an interview on Monday night.
“They’re literally operating with cruelty at the top of their agenda every day, and we shouldn’t be funding a rogue agency like that,” said McIver, who, like many New Jersey Democrats in Congress, has called for Noem’s impeachment. “Why do these people get to go around murdering people and beating the crap out of folks and literally terrorizing communities without any accountability?”
In a separate interview Monday night with NJ Spotlight News, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th) said Republicans “better recognize that we think this is so significant that we’re willing to go to the mat for it.” Asked for her demands in the funding talks, Watson Coleman said she wanted items like body cameras for immigration agents.
“We should get cameras, no masks, identification, training and agreement to do law enforcement constitutionally, legally, and to go after criminals and not everyday working people who are just trying to make a way for themselves and their family,” said Watson Coleman, who holds a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
After a Texas Democrat who won a special election was sworn in on Monday, Republican House leaders can afford to lose one defection on a roll-call vote, assuming all House members are present and voting. The wafer-thin reality was on display last month, when Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd) and Chris Smith (R-4th) cast key votes that sank a labor bill.
Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican who leads the House, likely will have to press Democrats for votes after the right-leaning House Freedom Caucus said Monday it opposed the deal passed by the Senate.
“We’ll get all this done by Tuesday, I’m convinced,” Johnson told Fox News on Sunday. “I don’t understand why anybody would have a problem with this, though. Remember, these are the bills that have already been passed. We’re going to do it again.”
Trump on Monday said he believed the sides “were pretty close to a resolution.” He dismissed the idea of amending the bill.
The pending deal, which cleared the Senate 71-29, funded five of six outstanding appropriations bills and funded Homeland Security for two weeks.
‘Occupation of our streets’
“I urge Americans to stay engaged and vocal,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said in a statement after the vote. “It’s because of their pressure that Trump and Republicans felt backed into a corner and agreed to do the DHS vote separately. Democrats are united in demanding the end of Trump’s occupation of our streets and bringing safety back to our communities.”
Beyond the Homeland Security portion, the funding deal has received bipartisan support. It includes about $1.2 trillion, with significant pots of money for New Jersey and the greater Northeast, like $700 million for the Gateway Program, about $300 million for New York City’s Second Avenue subway project and transit money for FIFA World Cup soccer tournament transit.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who along with Kim last week voted against the spending package, toured a potential ICE warehouse in Roxbury in January.
“DHS and ICE have come into our communities — towns and cities that pride themselves on the strength of their diversity — and sowed immense fear and distrust,” Booker said after the tour. “In Roxbury, they’re having to contend with the possibility that a local warehouse will be repurposed into an ICE detention center.”
Under a previously passed Homeland Security bill, the Trump administration must publish detailed arrest information every month, including location, detentions and removals of U.S. citizens, lawful residents and former military members. It’s unclear whether that language will be part of the final deal.
