Podcast: Is Congress as dysfunctional as it seems?

Congress’s latest shutdown scare ended the way these episodes usually do: with a stopgap deal, a sigh of relief, and little sense that the underlying conflict had been resolved. But buried inside the agreement was a revealing maneuver. While most of the federal government received longer-term funding, the Department of Homeland Security, and especially Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was given only a short-term extension. That asymmetry was deliberate. It preserved leverage over one of the most controversial federal agencies without triggering a prolonged shutdown, while also exposing the narrow terrain on which Congress is still willing to confront executive power. As with so many recent budget deals, the decision emerged less from open debate than from late-stage negotiations compressed into the final hours before the deadline.

How the Deal Was Framed

Democrats used the funding deadline to force a conversation about ICE’s enforcement practices, but they were careful about how that conversation was structured. Rather than reopening the far more combustible debate over immigration levels, deportation priorities, or statutory authority, they framed the dispute as one about law-enforcement standards, specifically transparency, accountability, and oversight.