Ship Has SAILED: Bill Melugin Explains How Democrats Lost AGAIN With Senate Passing Partial DHS Funding

Full disclosure. This morning, when this editor saw that once again Thune appeared to have caved to the Democrats (and then left on vacation), this editor was pissed.

Then sad.

Then pissed again.

It's no secret that many Republicans feel like the party keeps letting them down (see Virginia). That being said, after throwing a minor temper tantrum and drinking a bunch of coffee, this editor figured out what really happened.

Oh, and this from Bill Melugin, who we can't help but trust, helped a lot:

Because Senate Democrats didn’t end up accepting the Republican offer on DHS funding & negotiations fell apart yesterday, Dems will get *zero* of the ICE reforms they had been demanding, including ones that GOP had already agreed to, like showing ID, increased Congressional…
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) March 27, 2026

Post continues:

... oversight, agreements to not hit sensitive locations, etc.
These reforms were the reason Dems started the shutdown in the first place, and now instead of getting a few concessions on their demand list, they get none.
The only thing they secured was no funding for CBP & ICE, which are largely already funded via the OBBB, and Republicans will seek to fund them even further without Dem votes in reconciliation instead.
As for the Dem’s demand list on ICE reforms?“
That ship has sailed,” Sen. Majority Leader John Thune said this morning. “They kissed that opportunity goodbye by failing to provide funding for those agencies.”

Ship Has SAILED: Bill Melugin Explains How Democrats Lost AGAIN With Senate Passing Partial DHS Funding

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