Homeland Security Blocks Funding, Democrats Warn as 7,000 DACA Recipients Face Deportation

(OREGON) — Democrats are blocking Department of Homeland Security funding while arguing that deportations and detentions involving Dreamers have pushed DACA recipients to the center of a wider fight over immigration enforcement and the federal budget.

Budget negotiations remained unresolved as of March 18, 2026, leaving DHS as the sole major federal funding issue still unsettled. The dispute reaches far beyond immigration enforcement, touching airport screening, disaster preparation, maritime operations and cybersecurity work across the department.

Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Adriano Espaillat said Tuesday that deportations of Dreamers amount to “illegal” aggression by ICE. Democrats have tied their opposition to DHS funding to those enforcement actions while trying to shield the rest of the department from damage, framing the standoff as both a funding fight and a clash over enforcement priorities.

That has made DACA recipients a focal point in a shutdown-era argument that mixes budget leverage, legal uncertainty and political messaging. Republicans have defended continued enforcement and pointed to criminal cases to argue ICE should keep operating without new restrictions.

Rep. Andrea Salinas, an Oregon Democrat, said Trump administration policies are forcing extensive background checks on all DACA recipients and compounding USCIS backlogs. She said those delays are holding up work authorizations, costing people jobs and leaving them more exposed to deportation.

Salinas pointed to a case in her district in which a Dreamer lost employment at the Oregon School Employees Association because of those hurdles. Her argument puts renewals and employment authorization at the center of the current fight, not only detention and removal.

Democrats have used those cases to argue that Dreamers, who already undergo background checks to renew protections, are being swept into a system that leaves them vulnerable even when they are trying to maintain legal work authorization. Republicans, in turn, have used individual criminal cases and department-wide arrest figures to argue enforcement is not aimed at law-abiding immigrants broadly but at people they say pose public-safety risks.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said ICE detained 261 DACA recipients over the past year and deported 86. She said 241 had alleged criminal histories, including traffic infractions and nonviolent misdemeanors.

Noem also argued that DACA provides temporary forbearance rather than permanent rights, and she urged Congress to change the law if lawmakers are dissatisfied with current enforcement. Her figures have become a central part of the administration’s case against Democratic efforts to use the Homeland Security blockade to press for policy changes.

Senate Democrats challenged those claims. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Judiciary Committee ranking member, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Alex Padilla of California demanded detailed evidence supporting the criminal-history assertions and pointed to the rigorous background checks required for DACA renewals.

That exchange has sharpened the political divide. Democrats are spotlighting individual Dreamers whose work permits or renewals have run into delays, while Republicans are emphasizing aggregate detention and deportation numbers and highlighting offenses they say justify continued arrests.

The numbers themselves are now part of the argument. Democrats have cited the deportation of 86 DACA recipients and detention of 260 total as a reason to hold back funding, while Noem put the number detained at 261 over the past year. Both sides are using those figures to define what the current enforcement posture means in practice.

Behind the immigration clash, the budget fight carries broader operational risks across DHS. The department has kept operating under prior funding, including more than $75 billion for ICE from last summer’s “one big beautiful bill,” a cushion that has insulated enforcement from some immediate shutdown effects.

Other parts of DHS do not have the same protection. More than 50,000 TSA agents risk missing paychecks, FEMA training has been canceled, Coast Guard operations have been disrupted and CISA cybersecurity assessments have been halted amid threats such as Iranian cyberattacks.

That breadth matters in the current impasse. Democrats are not simply withholding support from ICE; the standoff affects the department’s daily functions across agencies that screen travelers, prepare for disasters, patrol waters and assess cyber threats.

At the same time, Democrats are pairing funding demands with proposed ICE reforms. They want body cameras, no masks, judicial warrants for arrests and a code of conduct for officers.

Republicans have called those demands impractical. They argue enforcement should continue, especially in cases involving people with serious records, and they have rejected the idea that funding should be conditioned on changes they say would restrict officers in the field.

The legal backdrop has made the politics even harder to untangle. A Fifth Circuit ruling that took effect in March 2026 held DACA regulations unlawful, adding pressure to a program that already faced deep uncertainty while Congress remained deadlocked.

The injunction was limited to Texas, but the ruling carries implications well beyond one state because DACA recipients across the country rely on the program for work permits and protection from removal. More than 535,000 recipients could feel the effects on employment authorization even as some deportation protections remain in place.

That leaves Dreamers in a narrow and unstable position. The court decision kept part of the program’s protective structure in place for now, but it also reinforced the argument that executive action alone may not settle DACA’s long-term future.

The ruling took effect on March 11, 2026. For DACA recipients, that date has legal and practical weight because work authorization often determines whether they can keep jobs, renew licenses and maintain a measure of stability while lawmakers and courts continue to fight over the program’s future.

In that sense, the latest court action has merged with the budget battle. Democrats are arguing that a department pursuing deportations and detentions involving Dreamers should not get a clean funding bill, while Republicans are responding that Congress should not use a funding deadline to weaken enforcement.

The broader consequence is a department pulled into two simultaneous disputes: one over appropriations and one over who gets targeted for immigration enforcement. DACA recipients sit at the intersection of both, as lawmakers argue over whether the system is unfairly sweeping them in or properly applying the limits of a temporary policy.

Congress has not resolved either question. DHS funding remains the last major gap in the federal budget process after more than a month of stalemate, and the impasse has stretched on since shutdown-related disruptions that began on February 14, 2026.

Those disruptions have already reached services beyond immigration detention and removal. Global Entry has been affected, and critical infrastructure checks have also been disrupted as the funding fight drags on.

Negotiations are continuing without a final resolution as Congress recesses. That leaves day-to-day DHS work in limbo even while both parties continue to sharpen their arguments around Dreamers, public safety and the terms of any eventual funding agreement.

Each side has found its most effective examples. Democrats have elevated cases involving DACA renewals, job losses and the risk of deportation for people who came forward under the program and kept meeting renewal requirements.

Republicans have turned to named criminal cases. Among the examples cited in support of continued enforcement is Gasper Florentino, described as an MS-13 member convicted of aggravated sexual battery and rape in Fairfax, Virginia.

Other serious-offender cases have also been referenced as Republicans resist reform demands tied to the funding bill. Those examples help them argue that ICE must keep broad authority to arrest and remove people they say threaten public safety.

That contrast has become politically potent because it compresses a sprawling policy fight into competing faces and numbers. One side points to Dreamers delayed by background checks, USCIS backlogs and lost work authorizations. The other points to offenders and arrest statistics to argue that enforcement remains necessary and should not be weakened.

For DACA recipients, the debate is not abstract. It now touches court rulings, work permits, deportation protections, congressional budget tactics and the possibility that only Congress can settle their status permanently.

For lawmakers, the impasse has become a test of what DHS funding is meant to support and what limits, if any, should be imposed on immigration enforcement while that department stays open. As the Homeland Security blockade continues, Dreamers remain at the center of a dispute defined by two competing claims: individualized public-safety cases on one side, and system-wide risks for DACA recipients on the other.