Isolating ICE

Two weeks ago, both parties agreed to fund the rest of the government for the full fiscal year, but to fund the Department of Homeland Security only until the end of this week, pending an agreement to limit ICE abuses. House Democrats sent their Republican counterparts a legislative text with ten conditions, but Republicans, getting mixed signals from the White House, never even sat down to negotiate.

So Democrats in both Houses came up with an off-ramp. “We proposed to cleave off ICE and Customs and Border Patrol...