Shortly after President Donald Trump on Friday signed a presidential memo directing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees, a key House committee meeting descended into conspiracy theories as it debated whether to take action on a Senate bill that would do the same.
Trump’s executive action, on dubious authority, comes as the Senate-passed bill that would fund DHS without Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is stalled.
“America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point,” Trump declared in the memo authorizing the payments. “I have determined that these circumstances constitute an emergency situation compromising the Nation’s security.”
House Republican leaders — seemingly upset that the Senate GOP did not consult them before making a deal with Democrats — are refusing to get behind the DHS funding bill that the Senate passed with a voice vote around 2:30 a.m. on Friday morning.
Instead, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and the leadership plan to push for a vote on a continuing resolution (CR) to fund all of DHS through May 22, saying they will not vote for a funding package that does not give ICE and CBP any money.
Though the Senate-passed bill does not provide any new funding for ICE and CBP, those agencies have access to billions of dollars of funding that Republicans already authorized for them in their 2025 reconciliation bill dubbed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”
Senate Democrats have vowed for more than a month to oppose any legislation that funds the two agencies without reforms, suggesting Johnson’s House effort would go nowhere in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass.
“The Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” Johnson said during a Friday press conference. “We are going to deport dangerous criminal illegal aliens because it is a basic function of the government.”
“This gambit that was done last night is a joke,” Johnson added. “I’m quite convinced that it can’t be that every Senate Republican read the language of this bill.”
The House Rules Committee met Friday afternoon to consider the House GOP stopgap, Republicans on the committee repeatedly speculated that the Senate-passed funding package — based on a Democratic bill that had been before legislators for weeks — was a deal made in secret and that is why the upper chamber did a voice vote in the early hours of Friday morning.
Republicans on the committee, which include three members of the House Freedom Caucus, also said that they do not believe all senators read the bill before it was passed.
Rules Committee Democrats pushed back on those claims, saying that the Senate Majority Leader himself brought the bill to the floor for the voice vote.
This was passed “by voice in the middle of the night,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said when asked by a Democrat why none of the Senate Republicans objected to the DHS funding bill, pointing to senators not doing a roll call vote.
“You control the Senate,” Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-MA) responded. “You control the agenda in the Senate. And the person who is holding up paying people is the Speaker of the House.”
Meanwhile, House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) pointed out any one of the Republican senators who was present on the Senate floor during the voice vote could have stopped the bill from passing.
Roy started to yell over the two Democrats, saying Senate Democrats “refuse to actually do the job for the American people … And Americans are dying because you guys refuse to secure the country.”
“Stop the bullshit,” McGovern yelled back as the back and forth continued.
It is unclear if the Senate, which already left town for their two-week Easter break, would come back to consider such a stopgap, if it passed the House. Even if they did, Senate Democratic leadership already said they would not vote for the stopgap House GOP is hoping to push forward.
“A 60 day CR that locks in the status quo is dead on arrival in the Senate, and Republicans know it,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a Friday statement. “We’ve been clear from day one: Democrats will fund critical Homeland Security functions—but we will not give a blank check to Trump’s lawless and deadly immigration militia without reforms.”
As has been the case for past CRs and appropriations bills, Senate Republicans would need a handful of Senate Democrats that join them in supporting the stopgap.
Senate Democrats have through the more than 40 day shutdown stayed united, sticking to their word that they would not approve funding for ICE and CBP without meaningful reforms.
I really really want to just sit back and laugh at the MAGA meltdown. But the consequences are just too damn serious. But the House has to know that there is no way that Thune is going to call the Senate back to vote on some dead on arrival bill concocted by Chip Roy and the Freedom Caucus. Time for a reality check in the House, maybe they’ll demand a new Speaker !
But… but… but… he created the circumstances. He compromised national security. So, he deserves more authority?
Try impeachment first.
Someone in the House needs to confront Mikey about the monetary gift he allegedly got from the First Felon. Likely illegal and probably the reason Mikey isn’t on board with the Senate offering.
Round 2 of the Dotard has enabled the lamest, stupidest, most ignorant and mean-spirited people to positions of power in our government. Without that moronic criminal puppet of foreign and moneyed (and foreign-moneyed) interests, I would not have to read about the Chip Roys and Mike Johnsons of the world.
Just tell the House MAGAs that the Senate bill includes free Grindr subscriptions for Congress, and the GOP will pass it unanimously.