ICE Funding Freeze

Plus: detention center NIMBYism and why you shouldn't walk on the semifrozen Potomac river.

An ICE funding freeze? Congress has a little less than two weeks to agree on a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the prospects of a deal are looking pretty bleak.

As we covered yesterday, Democrats are demanding that any funding bill for the DHS include a number of immigration enforcement reforms. They want to ban agents from wearing masks, require them to wear uniforms and ID, and abide by a "reasonable use of force policy."

The New York Times reported that Republicans are not having any of it. Sen. Katie Britt (R–Ala.), who chairs the Senate's homeland security subcommittee, has called Democrats' demands a "ridiculous Christmas list."

If nothing changes, DHS funding will lapse at the end of next week.

The DHS should be abolished completely, so one can't help but root for it to shut down. Unfortunately, there's minimal immediate practical upside to a shutdown. The administration can draw on previously appropriated money to keep its immigration enforcement operations running.

TSA screeners might not get paid during a DHS shutdown, but you will still have to submit to their abuse when getting on your flight.

The fact is, we don't have real shutdowns anymore. So much of the federal government works on autopilot, regardless of whether Congress has voted to fund it or not.

Detention Center NIMBYism: In an ironic bit of NIMBYism, Sen. Roger Wicker (R–Miss.) has come out against the DHS' plan to convert a warehouse in Byhalia, Mississippi, into a 10,000-person Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility.

Wicker says that he supports immigration enforcement, but does not believe this corner of his state is the right place to stash all the people he'd like to see deported.

I strongly oppose DHS's proposed plan to turn a warehouse in Byhalia, Mississippi, into an ICE detention center. I am all for immigration enforcement, but this site was meant for economic development and job creation. We cannot suddenly flood Byhalia with an influx of up to…

— Senator Roger Wicker (@SenatorWicker) February 4, 2026

This is not the first detention center to get hit with NIMBY complaints.

As the "zoning theory of everything" would predict, local governments from New Jersey to Portland, Oregon, have tried to use their zoning codes to keep ICE out of town. Activists have sued under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the same environmental law used to gum up all sorts of federal projects, to delay Florida's "Alligator Alcatraz."

People like myself, who like both open borders and building things, can be forgiven for having mixed feelings about these maneuvers.

Liberal localities' use of zoning codes or environmental lawsuits to try to block these facilities is pretextual and cynical. The people doing so don't object to immigration detention centers' impact on their neighborhood. They object to immigration detention centers, period.

This is yet more evidence of how easy it is to hijack local land-use processes and environmental review laws for reasons that have nothing to do with mitigating the local effects of a development or protecting the environment.

On the flip side, Wicker's complaints are more of the garden-variety NIMBYism one expects to hear about a highway project, power plant, or new subdivision. "This project is great, I just don't want it in my backyard."

This is a reminder that there's a plus side to the federal government getting in its own way when delivering big projects. The much-in-vogue "abundance agenda" likes to complain that endless red tape prevents Washington from building everything from new solar farms to new semiconductor factories. The same red tape makes it a lot harder to pull off mass deportations.

As the old adage goes, a government big enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take away everything you have.

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Scenes from D.C.: Some very brave, but very stupid souls, have been walking out onto the frozen Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Fun as it looks, I have to agree with Scott Thuman that you should not do this.

DON'T DO THIS! People out walking on the Potomac River which was iced over but highly dangerous…especially that far out where a current makes the ice thinner and more likely to break. First responders have been pleading with people to refrain from walking on any frozen… pic.twitter.com/UDrotGfJdI

— Scott Thuman (@ScottThuman) February 2, 2026

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QUICK HITS

• According to three anonymous sources, President Donald Trump told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) he'd release funding for a major rail project connecting New Jersey and New York if Washington-Dulles International Airport, sort of near D.C., and New York City's Penn Station were renamed after him, reports Politico.
• The Epstein files and Russiagate are the same thing, writes Seva Gunitsky at his Hegemon Substack.
• Who really saved the whales? Matt Yglesias argues it's a mix of economic innovation and concerted political action. Oh, and the fact that not even the Soviets could force people to like whale meat.
• The feds say a man illegally BASE jumped off Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. The accused says the alleged video proof is actually AI.
• The queen of cringe is back! Kamala Harris has relaunched her campaign X account as Headquarters, which will mobilize the young against "far-right extremism."

Welcome to Headquarters, the new Gen-Z led progressive content hub. pic.twitter.com/7EQyz3DFpd

— HQ (@headquarters68_) February 5, 2026