House Republican leaders rejected a bipartisan deal from the Senate to reopen the Department of Homeland Security while excluding Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) on Friday, dismissing it as a “joke.”
Instead, the House GOP pushed forward its own measure to keep the department funded until May 22, with a 213-203 vote late Friday night. But the bill has little chance of passing the upper chamber, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said it is “dead on arrival.”
How Did We Get Here?
The Department of Homeland Security has been largely shut down since Congress failed to pass legislation keeping it funded in mid February, as Democrats refused to give more money for immigration enforcement after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by federal agents.
An estimated 50,000 workers have gone unpaid due to the partial government shutdown, now in its 43rd day, leading to absences, labor shortages, and disruptions at key U.S. airports. Nearly 500 Transport Security Administration (TSA) officers have quit since the shutdown began, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Democrats and Republicans have been exchanging blame for the chaos caused by the shutdown. Democrats said they won’t help approve more funding until new restrictions are introduced on federal immigration operations, and have accused Republicans of choosing “chaos” over compromise, as Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, said.
Leavitt has pointed the finger back at Democrats, accusing them to “want this chaos.”
What Did the Senate Propose?
Before leaving for a two-week break, the Senate unanimously passed a funding bill before dawn Friday that would have ended the ongoing partial shutdown that has crippled U.S. airports in recent weeks, forcing travelers to face major delays and long lines for security checks across the country.
The bipartisan deal, engineered by Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican and the majority leader, would have funded most of the Department of Homeland Security, but not ICE or Border Control, through September 30.
What Was the House’s Response?
While Senate Republicans had reached an agreement with their Democratic peers, House Republican leaders refused to take up the bill, criticizing their fellow party members for agreeing to withhold money for ICE.
“House Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Friday. “This gambit that was done last night is a joke.”
“It is absolutely offensive to the people that we represent that the Senate would send over a bill that doesn’t fund Border Patrol and the core components of ICE,” said Representative Chip Roy, a Texas Republican. “Could the Senate be any more lazy than to send to us a bill that doesn’t do the job and then leave town? We are going to stand up and say no to that.”
Representative Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, criticized House Republicans’ rebuttal of the Senate bill, saying that they could have ended the shutdown immediately if Johnson had put the Senate bill on the floor for a vote. “There is no question it would pass,” he said, as reported by The New York Times.
“If you woke up this morning not knowing who to blame for this shutdown, you will go to bed tonight with no doubt on who to blame,” McGovern, the senior Democrat on the Rules Committee, said on Friday. “It’s House Republicans and Speaker Johnson.”
The decision by the House GOP to pursue its own funding bill, which now goes to the Senate, puts it on a collision course with the higher chamber, complicating efforts to end the partial government shutdown. Neither the House nor the Senate seem willing to pick up the other’s proposal.
What Happens Next?
Despite the recent efforts to end it, the partial government shutdown seems set to drag on as the House and the Senate enter a two-week recess. After this weekend, the shutdown will become longer than any previous shutdown, partial or full, on record.
In an effort to address the crisis unfolding at U.S. airports, President Donald Trump issued a memo on Thursday ordering his administration to pay TSA workers. On social media, Trump wrote that he was instructing the agency “to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports. It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it!”
According to the Department of Homeland Security, airport screeners will begin receiving their paychecks as early as Monday.
Enforcement agencies such as ICE and Border Control have been funded through the weeks-long shutdown with money previously approved by Congress.
