Top appropriators on Capitol Hill are seeking to tighten limits around how much money DHS can shift between accounts as they finalize funding bills ahead of the Jan. 30 shutdown deadline.
Rep. Mark Amodei, the Nevada Republican who chairs the DHS funding panel, told reporters Tuesday night that House and Senate appropriators are crafting their spending measure to make it “harder to make the money mobile.” The effort comes as the Trump administration has spent the past year testing the limits of its power to disregard congressional intent and reprogram billions of dollars between accounts.
“We did a bunch of reprogramming,” Amodei said of Republicans in the White House. “It’s like, hey, that’s bullshit.”
To limit the Trump administration’s ability to shift cash, appropriators plan to include tables within the bill that show exactly which accounts should be funded and lower the percentages of cash that can be used for other purposes, Amodei continued.
Appropriators have briefed President Donald Trump’s budget office on the funding bill they hope to pass and have taken OMB’s input into account, Amodei said. Still, he acknowledged that some Trump administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, will not be fond of new restrictions on moving around cash.
“Now I know that the secretary doesn’t like that,” Amodei said. “And it’s like, well, we’ve all got our unlike departments. And so welcome to the club.”
He also divulged that the funding bill will provide enough cash for DHS to keep 44,500 immigrants in detention facilities at any given time. Appropriators will be tracking detention capacity every month and expect the Trump administration to fill that “detention bed” capacity, he added.
“They better, by God, be full,” said Amodei.
Amodei is in the midst of final negotiations with senior Senate appropriators on the DHS funding bill. “We’re real close,” he said. “We want to be able to publish the bill this week.”
