Hakeem Jeffries once called not funding DHS ‘legislative malpractice’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (DY) once said that failure to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was “legislative malpractice”; he now rejects that position in the current funding dispute with Republicans.

“We’re here today to do one thing, and that should be to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security,” Jeffries said in a 2015 speech to the House of Representatives.

Near the beginning of his congressional career, Jeffries urged the Republican-controlled House to pass a “clean” DHS bill that year, when the department was on the verge of a partial government shutdown.

“Anything else is an evasion of our responsibility. Anything else is legislative malpractice,” Jeffries said at the time, referring to providing a full-year appropriation to the department.

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A decade later, Jeffries reversed this view, arguing that fully funding DHS would be a failure of Congress. He and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-Y) withdrew their votes on the full-year DHS funding bill as they called for several reforms to rein in immigration enforcement.

“Taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable, not to brutalize or kill the American people,” Jeffries said in February. “The American people know about ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] It’s out of control.”

A 39-day funding shortage has disrupted air travel across the country as travelers face hours-long waits at airport security checkpoints due to a shortage of TSA workers. Tens of thousands of DHS employees, including TSA agents, report working without pay during the shutdown, causing some to quit or quit altogether.

Some TSA personnel sleep in cars and sell blood plasma to make ends meet, TSA Acting Administrator Adam Stahl said Tuesday.

Jeffries is expected to vote against a year-long DHS measure with a majority of House Democrats this week. The minority leader has repeatedly voted against a “clean” DHS spending measure since then. TThe funding cut began on February 14.

A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer stands near a security checkpoint. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) narrowly guided the legislation through his own chamber with largely Republican votes, but the spending measure stalled in the Senate, where nearly all Democrats moved to filibuster the legislation.

Jeffries, by contrast, wants a vote on a DHS appropriations bill that would fund the department, excluding immigration enforcement functions.

“We can fund the TSA, we can fund the Coast Guard, we can fund FEMA, we can fund our cybersecurity experts, or we can continue to allow ICE to brutalize and in some cases kill American citizens or violently target law-abiding immigrant families,” Jeffries said at a news conference last week.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) stops to answer questions from reporters as he arrives at a closed-door Republican Conference meeting at the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

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It was a position he warned in his 2015 speech that it could endanger Americans.

“We are playing political games at a time when the safety and security of the American people is threatened,” Jeffries said of the possibility of failing to pass a full-year DHS bill.

A spokesperson for Jeffries did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.