House Republicans are refusing to back a bipartisan Senate plan to reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unless they first secure guaranteed funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, hardening a standoff in Washington that has kept the department in a record shutdown.
For context, the Senate has already passed, by unanimous consent, a bill that would restore funding for the bulk of DHS, including the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That legislation deliberately carves out ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), leaving their budgets to be decided later in a separate Republican-only reconciliation bill that could move through Congress by 1 June. Democrats have said they will not support fresh money for ICE and Border Patrol without what they describe as 'significant' reforms to immigration enforcement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, had until very recently been one of the Senate bill's fiercest critics. Last week he dismissed the upper chamber's package as a 'joke', and the House instead passed its own eight‑week stopgap to keep DHS open. That measure promptly ran aground in the Senate, unable to overcome a filibuster, and by Thursday Johnson had pivoted, appearing alongside Senate Minority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and former president Donald Trump to endorse a two‑step rescue plan.
The idea is simple enough on paper. First, the House would sign off on the Senate's DHS bill, immediately restoring pay and operations for most of the department. Then Republicans would use the budget reconciliation process, which sidesteps the Senate's usual 60‑vote threshold, to advance a partisan bill funding ICE and Border Patrol while tightening border and enforcement policy without needing Democratic votes.
It is not going down well in Johnson's own conference.
On a private House Republican conference call on Thursday, members from across the ideological spectrum, not just the usual band of Freedom Caucus rebels, insisted they would not support the Senate's DHS package until Congress had first passed the reconciliation bill that locks in ICE and Border Patrol funding, according to accounts given to The Hill. Several lawmakers demanded concrete assurances that a hardline immigration and border security bill would not only be drafted but could actually clear both chambers under reconciliation rules.
Republican Representative Randy Fine of Florida put it bluntly, telling The Hill there was 'no desire to pass the Senate open borders bill and then hope that we get a reconciliation bill that would close the border'. He added: 'We have the Senate open borders bill. Now, they've got to send over the one that will keep the border closed.'
ICE Funding Becomes Leverage In DHS Shutdown Fight
The insistence on resolving ICE funding first has left House leaders in a procedural bind.
To move the Senate bill under normal House rules, Republican leaders would need a near‑unified party to approve the procedural rule that governs debate. That support is clearly not there. The fallback would be to use an expedited 'suspension of the rules' procedure, which requires a two‑thirds majority of the full chamber.
Democratic leaders have signalled they back the Senate DHS bill, but even if most Democrats voted yes, it is unclear whether enough Republicans would join them to reach the two‑thirds threshold. Senior Republicans are also visibly wary of violating the informal 'Hastert rule,' the practice of not bringing forward any bill that cannot command the support of a majority of the GOP conference. Pushing through a DHS package on mostly Democratic votes while a loud faction is demanding an ICE guarantee is exactly the sort of move that has toppled Republican speakers in the past.
Some conservatives have chosen to make their resistance public rather than keep it within the family. Scott Perry, the former chair of the Freedom Caucus and a Republican from Pennsylvania, wrote on X that 'caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again. If that's the vote, I'm a NO.'
Narrow Reconciliation Bill For ICE And Border Patrol
The Senate's DHS bill has now been sent back to the House after passing again by unanimous consent early on Thursday morning. The House had a brief procedural window to move it during a pro forma session later that day and chose not to act.
Complicating matters further, both chambers are now on recess until the week of 13 April, with some lawmakers already overseas. According to one source on the Republican conference call, GOP leaders indicated there is no current plan to haul members back to Washington early just to vote on the Senate DHS package.
Trump has taken some heat off Congress by saying on Thursday that he would sign a measure ensuring all DHS employees receive pay, despite the broader shutdown. He had previously authorised pay for TSA officers, while Border Patrol and ICE personnel have also been receiving cheques during the impasse. That stop‑gap, however, does nothing to resolve the underlying funding and policy disputes.
When lawmakers return, DHS will not be the only problem waiting on Johnson's desk. House Republicans are also under pressure to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's spy powers before their current authority lapses on 20 April. Leadership has already shelved one attempt at a straightforward reauthorisation after pushback from hardliners demanding surveillance reforms or even unrelated voting changes as part of the deal.
Within that crowded agenda, the demand for an ICE‑centred reconciliation bill has taken on outsized weight.
Johnson and Thune, in a statement on Wednesday, highlighted that Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, announced in March that his panel would begin work on a reconciliation bill to fund ICE removal operations, add elements of voting reform and provide money for the war in Iran. Some House Republicans have their own wish‑lists for reconciliation, calling for measures to address fraud in federal programmes and broader spending cuts.
Thune suggested on Thursday that, if anything, the ICE and Border Patrol bill will have to be narrower than that to have a chance of moving quickly. He told reporters that Republicans were 'singularly focused ... around the things we have to do on the border, on ICE and CBP,' warning that other priorities would drag in multiple committees and raise procedural fights over what is allowed in the bill.
Reconciliation can only be used once per fiscal year, but Republicans technically still have two bites left this year. How they choose to spend that procedural currency, and whether they insist on binding ICE funding before reopening the rest of DHS, will dictate not only when the shutdown ends but also how far the party is willing to push its immigration fight.
