Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, a result that will give the party the committees that oversee the Department of Homeland Security when the new Congress convenes in January.
CNN projected shortly after 10 p.m. Eastern time that Democrats would win the House, and the network called the Senate for the party at 11:35 p.m.
Within hours, Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee posted a message on X to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that read “clear your calendar.”
Congress immediately begins hiring to investigate Homeland Security
Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire began recruiting investigators for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee the day after the election. Ms. Hassan, a Democrat and longtime member of the committee, is in line to lead it when the new Congress convenes. A posting on the Senate employment site seeks investigators and oversight counsel who can lead investigations, work through large volumes of documents and data, and turn their findings into reports, hearings, and public releases.
The posting refers only to the committee’s incoming chair and does not name Ms. Hassan. Applications go to an email address that identifies the sender as a New England Democratic senator. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, has led the committee since January 2025.
The office is looking for people who have run complex investigations as congressional staff members, lawyers, journalists, law enforcement officers, or data analysts. A law degree is helpful but not required. Applicants must send a résumé, a writing sample, and a cover letter that describes one investigation, including the records they used and how they obtained them. Applications are due by the end of Thursday, Nov. 12, and are reviewed as they arrive.
New gavels, new subpoena power
The House result also moves the House Homeland Security Committee into Democratic hands. Representative Andrew Garbarino, Republican of New York, chairs the committee now. Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi is its ranking Democrat and would be next in line to lead it under his party’s usual practice.
The committee majority decides whether subpoenas go out. In July 2025, Mr. Thompson moved to subpoena Kristi Noem, who was then the homeland security secretary, and Republicans blocked the motion. Democrats on the panel made similar attempts this year to compel testimony from immigration enforcement leaders, and those efforts also failed.
The “clear your calendar” message was aimed at Mr. Mullin, a former Republican senator from Oklahoma who was sworn in on March 24. Starting in January, Democrats will not need Republican votes to call him before the committee.
The fight over DHS money
Democrats have also said they will use their control of spending. Before the election, Representative Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he expected Democrats to attach conditions to the department’s funding so that new accountability measures for immigration enforcement could be enforced.
The department has already been through one funding standoff this year. A partial shutdown began on Feb. 14 after Democrats withheld funding in an effort to force changes to immigration enforcement operations. Mr. Mullin took office during that shutdown, while many Transportation Security Administration workers were going without pay.
No word from ICE’s biggest contractors
Overnight, Project Salt Box contacted the chief executives and press offices of five major ICE detention contractors: GEO Group, CoreCivic, GardaWorld, KVG, and SK2. Each was asked whether it expected to face federal scrutiny when the new Congress convenes in January. None responded.
GEO Group and CoreCivic are the two largest private prison operators in the United States. KVG holds the $113 million contract to retrofit the Williamsport warehouse, and GardaWorld holds the contracts in Surprise, Ariz., and San Antonio, Texas.
Do you know more? Project Salt Box has readers inside these companies, and we want to hear from you. if you have information about DHS oversight, detention contracts, or the transition in Congress, please email projectsaltbox@proton.me or send a message to mwriston.410 on Signal from a non-work device.
Frederick County ousts its pro-ICE sheriff
Voters in Frederick County, Md., defeated Sheriff Chuck Jenkins on Tuesday, ending a tenure that began in 2006. Karl Bickel, a 76-year-old Democrat who served as second in command at the sheriff’s office in the 1990s, won about 56 percent of the vote to Mr. Jenkins’s 44 percent, Bolts reported. Mr. Bickel had lost to Mr. Jenkins in each of the previous three elections.
Mr. Jenkins brought the county into the 287(g) program in 2008. The program lets local officers carry out federal immigration enforcement, and Mr. Jenkins said publicly that it had helped deport about 2,000 people. Maryland later banned 287(g) agreements, and Mr. Jenkins joined 16 other Maryland sheriffs in a lawsuit challenging the ban. Mr. Bickel has said he will not work with ICE and will have his deputies monitor the agency’s activity in the county.
In North Carolina, Sheriff Terry Johnson of Alamance County lost his bid for a seventh term. Shannon Long, an unaffiliated candidate, defeated him.
Mr. Long, a pastor and former sheriff’s deputy and jailer in neighboring Orange County, qualified for the ballot by petition, according to state election filings. Mr. Johnson had held the office since 2002 and was sued by the Justice Department over the treatment of Latino drivers. A federal judge ruled in his favor in 2015.
The Williamsport warehouse next door
In neighboring Washington County, Maryland is still fighting in court over a warehouse near Williamsport that DHS bought for $102.4 million. The department plans to turn the 825,000-square-foot building into a detention center for up to 1,500 people, and it has awarded KVG, a company based in Gettysburg, Pa., a $113 million contract to retrofit it.
A federal judge ruled in April that ICE had violated the National Environmental Policy Act in its first push to convert the building. DHS has told the court it plans to hold 542 people there at first. On July 1, Attorney General Anthony Brown asked ICE to halt the project, citing environmental concerns that remain unresolved. All nine Democrats in Maryland’s congressional delegation have also demanded that work stop.
Washington County voted differently from its neighbor on Tuesday. Republicans held the top five places in the race for the five county commission seats, and Brian Albert, the Republican candidate for sheriff, led Junior McLeod, a Democrat, with nearly 60 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results reported by LocalNews1. Gov. Wes Moore won re-election statewide, but Dan Cox, his Republican challenger, carried the county with 56 percent.
Representative April McClain Delaney, a Democrat who called the warehouse purchase unacceptable, won re-election in Maryland’s Sixth Congressional District overnight.
Protesters head to Montreal
A group called Neighbors Against ICE is planning a protest in Montreal on Saturday, Dec. 5, against GardaWorld, a Montreal-based private security company and one of Canada’s largest private corporations. Protesters plan to gather at 1 p.m. in Phillips Square and are calling on the company to end its contracts with ICE.
The group describes itself as a coalition of Americans, Canadians, religious leaders, and elected officials. It says GardaWorld holds about $2.5 billion in ICE contracts.
In March, the company’s American subsidiary, GardaWorld Federal Services, won a contract worth at least $313 million to run a planned detention center in a warehouse in Surprise, Ariz. Project Salt Box first reported that award.
The Surprise project has been on hold since June 30, when Arizona reached an agreement with DHS to pause it until an environmental review is finished. The company also holds a $17.3 million contract to convert a building in San Antonio into a processing and detention center, and it built and runs the Florida detention site known as Alligator Alcatraz.
Residents from Surprise and San Antonio will attend, according to a spokesperson for Northwest Valley Indivisible.
Immigration on the state ballots
Voters in two states also decided measures on immigration enforcement. In Colorado, voters rejected Amendment 81, which would have required police officers, sheriff’s deputies, and prosecutors to alert DHS when they charge someone whose immigration status is in question with a violent crime, or when that person has a prior felony conviction. The Associated Press called the race on Wednesday afternoon. Because the measure would have amended the state Constitution, it needed 55 percent of the vote to pass, and it received 45 percent.
The amendment would have overridden recent Colorado laws that limit cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE. Those laws, including one that bars state and local agencies from sharing personal information with ICE without a judge’s order, will remain in place.
In Arizona, voters approved Proposition 317, which declares drug cartels to be terrorist organizations and directs the state’s Department of Homeland Security to do everything within its authority to address them. The A.P. called the race at 1:40 a.m. on Wednesday, when the measure had 56 percent of the vote. Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a similar bill in 2023, writing that the state’s homeland security department is a grant management office, not a law enforcement agency.