No End in Sight to DHS Shutdown After House Refuses to Get Behind Senate Deal

The Department of Homeland Security-specific government shutdown is now the longest in history after House Republicans on Friday refused to get behind the Senate-passed bipartisan package that would have restored funding to all of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and the Republican caucus refused to vote on the Senate-passed bill, instead taking up a continuing resolution (CR) to fund all of DHS through May 22.

The stopgap passed late Friday night with all House Republicans and three House Democrats voting in favor of the CR. Reps. Don Davis (NC), Henry Cuellar (TX) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA) joined Republicans in favor of the bill.

Ahead of their CR vote, House Republicans, including Speaker Johnson, said they will not vote for a funding package that does not give ICE and CBP any money, claiming that the Senate deal was made in secret, behind some members’ backs.

The House GOP’s choice to ignore the Senate agreement and pass their own stopgap effectively made sure the shutdown will continue for the foreseeable future.

Following the passage of their own agreement, the Senate recessed for its two-week Easter break. The House also went on break after the Friday votes. Both chambers will eventually have to pass the same bill to end the ongoing shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said he is working with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to come to a new agreement. But Senate Democrats are not going to bend over backwards to help congressional Republicans as their intraparty disagreement widens.

“With the division and intransigence among Republicans it is clear that this is a Republican shutdown,” a Schumer spokesperson said Sunday. “Leader Schumer made clear that Democrats would not accept anything less than what was passed unanimously by the Senate. Speaker Johnson and House Republicans needlessly extended this DHS shutdown.”

“Republicans shouldn’t look to Senate Democrats to fix their own internal caucus problems,” the spokesperson said.

With the shutdown set to continue, the dire situation at airports across the U.S. will likely carry on. Over the past couple of weeks, travellers were forced to wait in hours-long lines at airport security lines as hundreds of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents resigned or called out sick from their jobs due to missed paychecks. The administration has also dispatched ICE agents to some of the nation’s busiest airports, though it’s unclear how much help they’re actually providing on the ground.  

To help alleviate the travel issues, President Donald Trump on Friday signed a presidential memo directing DHS to pay TSA employees. That move, though seemingly legally dubious, may help with the long TSA lines.

White House border czar Tom Homan said the administration plans to start paying TSA workers as soon as Tuesday, in an interview with CNN. Homan added that ICE will continue to be present at airports “until they’re 100% in a posture where they can do normal operations.”