The Senate took the first step Thursday in a GOP-backed plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, sending the House for a second time its bill to fund the department except for immigration enforcement.
In an early-morning pro forma session, the Senate agreed, by voice vote, to table a House measure that would have extended funding for the entire department for eight weeks. The move effectively restored the bill back to its original Senate-passed version, giving the House another chance to act on it.
The move came after President Donald Trump threw his support behind the Senate proposal, which includes a plan to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection separately through a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill in coming weeks. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who had called the Senate bill a “joke” last week because it lacked immigration enforcement funding, rallied behind it Wednesday after Trump’s intervention.
Trump set a June 1 deadline for Congress to pass a reconciliation bill funding the immigration agencies, a tight timeline for a cumbersome process that dragged on for roughly five months last year, when Republicans passed their “big, beautiful bill.”
Reconciliation plans multiply
Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Thursday at a meeting with constituents that he was pursuing plans for two reconciliation bills: the first one limited to immigration enforcement funding and a second one in the fall that would target fraud.
Graham said his second bill would also provide “a down payment on the SAVE Act,” a bill eagerly sought by Trump that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and photo identification at the polls.
“If you’re not willing to purge your voter rolls, then maybe some federal grants won’t come your way,” he told constituents in Greenville. “If you’re a sanctuary city causing chaos for the rest of us, maybe you should pay a fine.”
But Graham made no mention of including any defense funding in the bills, even as the Trump administration prepares to request that a portion of next year’s defense budget come from reconciliation.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday the new commitment from Trump and Johnson to back the Senate plan came after leaders had time “to figure out what’s in the realm of the possible,” given staunch Democratic opposition to funding the immigration agencies without new guardrails on federal agents.
But the House stopped short of trying to pass the measure by unanimous consent at its own pro forma session Thursday morning. Johnson was likely going to need to call the House back from its Easter recess at some point to clear the bill for Trump’s signature through a roll call vote.
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a former chairman of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, declared his opposition to the plan on the social platform X. He said Wednesday that “caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again.”
The partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, now 48 days old, has become the longest in history, with tens of thousands of workers going unpaid until the shutdown ends. Trump issued a directive to pay Transportation Security Administration workers on an emergency basis.
And on Thursday, Trump announced he would begin paying all DHS workers, without providing details on where the money would come from. “I will soon sign an order to pay ALL of the incredible employees at the Department of Homeland Security,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
