House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN on Sunday that Democrats will not accept anything less than their full slate of 10 demands from Republicans, with the Department of Homeland Security five days from a funding shutdown.
Asked whether Democrats would consider scaling back their list, Jeffries stated: "Not at this point."
That's the negotiating posture from the minority party as the clock runs out on DHS funding. Not a counteroffer. Not a willingness to prioritize. Just a blanket refusal to budge on a single item — while simultaneously claiming that Republicans are the ones refusing to come to the table.
Democrats rolled out their 10-point list last week, the New York Post reported. The full roster hasn't been made public, but the demands Jeffries chose to highlight on national television tell you plenty about the party's priorities. Among them: mandatory body cameras for ICE officers, a ban on ICE agents wearing masks during operations, and tighter restrictions requiring judicial warrants before immigration enforcement actions on private property.
Jeffries framed the list as modest and self-evident:
"These are common-sense changes, things like mandatory body cameras, judicial warrants should absolutely be required before ICE agents can storm private property and rip everyday Americans out of their homes in such a violent fashion."
Set aside the loaded language — "storm," "rip," "violent fashion" — and look at what's actually happening. The Trump administration has already begun rolling out a nationwide body camera policy for federal immigration officers. Border Czar Tom Homan announced the initiative last week, and it's already underway in Minnesota.
So Democrats are threatening to defund the Department of Homeland Security over a demand the administration is already implementing. That's not negotiation. That's theater.
The dueling accusations over who ghosted whom are worth examining. Jeffries claimed Democrats "haven't heard back" from GOP leadership on the demands they put forward. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, speaking on the Senate floor Thursday, painted a very different picture:
"Our team, our folks have tried to get with them, to sit down at the table and with the White House to reach an agreement."
He gave a blunt take on the Democrats' involvement, saying they haven't been engaging. Both parties accuse the other of ignoring outreach efforts, but only one has the upper hand with an upcoming funding deadline—and that side seems to be using it to apply pressure instead of working toward a deal.
Speaker Mike Johnson has already knocked down several of the Democrat demands, some of which represent clear red lines for the House majority. Democrats gave Republicans roughly 10 days to accept a list that includes items the GOP will never agree to, then accused Republicans of stalling. That's not a negotiation timeline. That's an ultimatum dressed up as bipartisanship.
Here's what makes this fight revealing. Republicans prefunded ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. All other government programs outside DHS are fully funded through the end of the fiscal year on September 30. The four-day government shutdown that just ended last week — resolved by a House vote — is barely in the rearview mirror. Nobody wants a repeat of last year's record-breaking 43-day shutdown.
Democrats know all of this. They also know that DHS is the one department where funding carries direct implications for immigration enforcement, which is exactly why they've chosen this hill. The demands aren't really about body cameras or masks. They're about hamstringing the enforcement apparatus that the Trump administration has made a centerpiece of its domestic agenda.
Some Democrats have privately floated the idea of funding the rest of DHS while carving out ICE and CBP — essentially funding everything except the agencies that enforce immigration law. That tells you everything about the actual target. Other Democrats pushed back on that approach, arguing it would surrender leverage. So the party's internal debate isn't over whether to obstruct enforcement — it's over the most effective way to do it.
Jeffries leaned hard into the demand that ICE officers stop wearing masks during operations:
"Of course, we need to make sure that there are no masks so that ICE is conducting itself like every other law enforcement agency in the country."
This is the same party that spent years defending masked protesters in the streets as exercising their rights. Now, facial coverings on federal law enforcement officers conducting lawful operations are an unacceptable breach of transparency. The principle isn't consistency — it's whatever creates the most friction for immigration enforcement.
The judicial warrant demand is more consequential. Requiring warrants for every immigration enforcement action on private property would introduce a procedural bottleneck designed to slow operations to a crawl. Administrative warrants — issued by immigration judges within the enforcement system — have been the standard for decades. Demanding Article III judicial warrants would functionally require ICE to get a federal judge's sign-off before executing routine enforcement. That's not reform. That's a kill switch.
Jeffries also addressed voter ID during the interview, offering a revealing dodge. When pressed on the SAVE Act — which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections — he said, "I haven't said that they're wrong."
Then came the pivot:
"…Every state is empowered to be able to make the decision on their own. And we completely and totally support that. What Donald Trump wants to do is try to nationalize the election."
So voter ID isn't wrong — it's just wrong at the federal level. Democrats have used the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate to block the SAVE Act, which the right flank of House Republicans has pushed to pass. Jeffries wants credit for not opposing the concept while his party blocks it in practice. That's not a position. That's a card trick.
The DHS funding deadline isn't abstract. It affects border security operations, the Secret Service, FEMA, the Coast Guard, TSA, and cybersecurity infrastructure. Democrats are betting that the political cost of a shutdown falls on Republicans regardless of who's actually refusing to negotiate. It's a bet they've won before.
But this time, the dynamics are different. The public can see that ICE body cameras are already being deployed. They can see that Democrats issued demands and then complained about the response time before the ink was dry. They can see that the minority party's list isn't a starting point for negotiation — it's a set of preconditions designed to never be met.
Hakeem Jeffries says dramatic changes are necessary before any DHS funding moves forward. The department shuts down in five days. And the minority leader's answer to whether he'll budge on a single demand remains the same: not at this point.
The clock isn't waiting for him to find one.