Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, conceded Sunday that the Biden administration "did not do immigration enforcement the way it should have", a rare public admission from a senior party figure that the previous White House left the border less secure than it needed to be.
Smith made the remarks on Fox News's "Fox News Sunday," where host Shannon Bream pressed him on the ongoing impasse over Department of Homeland Security funding. The Washington state Democrat tried to stake out middle ground between what he called a "radical-left" open-borders posture and the Trump administration's enforcement posture. But his opening concession landed harder than his pivot.
The backdrop: a partial government shutdown now weeks old, airports snarled by TSA staffing shortages, and a Democratic caucus that has refused to fund DHS while demanding that ICE agents obtain judicial warrants, wear body cameras, and remove face coverings during operations. Two U.S. citizens died earlier this year in Minneapolis at the hands of federal immigration authorities, and Democrats have used those deaths to justify their demands. Republicans see the same deaths as tragic but reject the idea that hamstringing ICE is the answer.
Smith's admission was blunt, at least by the standards of a party that spent four years insisting the border was under control. As The Hill reported, Smith told Bream:
"The Biden administration did not do immigration enforcement the way it should have. We should have [had] the border more secure than it was."
He followed that concession with an attempt to draw a line against the current administration's tactics:
"But there's plenty of room between that policy, between the radical-left policy you keep talking about, you know, open borders and all that. And having, you know, masked unidentified ICE agents show up. No probable cause."
The argument is familiar. Democrats want to frame the debate as a binary: either you support open borders or you oppose all enforcement. Smith tried to carve a third lane. But his own words undercut the effort. If the Biden administration failed on enforcement, and Smith now says it did, then the question is what the current administration should do differently. Democrats have answered that question by blocking DHS funding for weeks.
The Senate approved a funding package over the weekend for agencies housed under DHS. House Republicans rejected it. They countered with an eight-week package that would fully fund DHS, including ICE operations.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the House Republicans' bill "dead on arrival." That phrase has become a reflex in Washington, a way to kill legislation without debating it.
Democrats have refused to fund DHS for weeks. Their conditions: ICE agents must use judicial warrants, wear body-worn cameras, and remove face coverings during enforcement actions. President Trump and other Republicans have argued that masks prevent agents from being doxed, targeted online for doing their jobs. The standoff has left DHS partially unfunded while the two sides trade proposals that neither chamber will accept.
Smith pointed the finger at House Speaker Mike Johnson, saying TSA could be funded immediately "if Mike Johnson would just let us vote on what every single senator, including Sen. Cotton, by the way, supported out of the Senate." He added: "There's no reason not to pay TSA while we're having that other debate."
That framing conveniently ignores the fact that Democrats created the impasse by tying DHS funding to restrictions on ICE. Republicans responded with a clean funding bill. Democrats blocked it. Now Democrats blame Republicans for the consequences of a shutdown Democrats engineered.
The real-world fallout is hitting travelers. Airports across the country have been rattled by low TSA staffing levels, with workers calling out and security lines growing longer. President Trump sent ICE officers to several airports to help ease the burden, saying they would remain "as long as it takes."
Democrats have seized on the airport chaos to argue for a narrow TSA funding fix. But the chaos exists because Democrats refused to fund the department that houses TSA. Asking to fund one piece while starving the rest is not compromise. It is strategy, designed to keep ICE on a leash while shielding Democrats from blame for grounded screeners.
The pattern of Democratic vulnerability extends well beyond the border debate. A recent House Ethics panel finding against a sitting Florida Democrat on 25 of 27 counts reminded voters that the party's problems are not limited to policy disagreements.
The current fight over ICE tactics stemmed from the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year. The deaths occurred during encounters with federal immigration authorities. Democrats have used the incidents to demand sweeping changes to how ICE operates, warrants, cameras, unmasked agents.
Republicans have not dismissed the deaths. But they reject the leap from two incidents to a wholesale rewrite of enforcement procedures that would slow operations and expose agents to retaliation. The debate is real. The question is whether Democrats are using genuine tragedy to build permanent constraints on enforcement they never wanted in the first place.
Smith's own admission makes the case. If the Biden administration failed on border security, his words, then weakening ICE now is an odd remedy. The congressman wants credit for acknowledging the problem while backing policies that would make it harder to fix.
Meanwhile, Trump-backed candidates have been running the table in recent primaries, a sign that voters are rewarding the tougher enforcement stance rather than punishing it. Democrats reading the polls may explain why Smith felt compelled to break ranks on Biden's record, even if only briefly.
Smith is not a backbencher. He is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. When a Democrat of his stature goes on Fox News and says the previous administration blew it on the border, the admission carries weight.
It also exposes the tension inside the Democratic caucus. The party's progressive wing still treats any enforcement as suspect. Its moderates know the public disagrees. Smith tried to thread the needle, admit the failure, then redirect anger toward ICE tactics under Trump. The problem is that voters can hold two thoughts at once. They heard the concession. They also see Democrats blocking funding for the very agency tasked with fixing the mess Smith just acknowledged.
The political landscape keeps shifting, too. A Virginia redistricting fight that could hand Democrats additional House seats shows the party is banking on structural advantages rather than winning the policy argument on immigration.
Smith said there is "plenty of room" between open borders and masked ICE agents. Maybe so. But for four years his party occupied the open-borders end of that spectrum, and he just told the country it didn't work.
When even your own side admits the border was broken on its watch, the argument for handcuffing the people trying to fix it gets a lot harder to sell.
