The US Senate has passed legislation that will finance most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) but withhold funds from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and part of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
The Senate approved the funding package by a voice vote in a rare overnight session, ahead of Congress’ scheduled two-week recess on Friday. The agreement would fund the DHS subagencies affected by the lapse in funding which has lasted almost six weeks, such as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), US Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa).
However, the House of Representatives will still need to act in order to end the partial shutdown, and they could vote as soon as Friday.
Lawmakers have been deadlocked for two months over broader DHS funding. Democrats, for their part, have demanded stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement, in the wake of the fatal shootings of two US citizens during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Republicans ultimately conceded to an 11th-hour deal that Democrats have been pushing for weeks – reopening only the affected agencies and omitting funding for ICE and CBP.
In a statement, Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, welcomed the funding package, passed by unanimous consent, but said that it “could’ve been accomplished weeks ago if Republicans hadn’t stood in the way”.
“Democrats held firm in our opposition that Donald Trump’s rogue and deadly militia should not get more funding without serious reforms, and we will continue to fight for those reforms,” he added.
Since ICE received $75bn through the president’s sweeping policy bill last year, it has been largely insulated from the funding lapse that has hit other parts of the DHS.
Prior to the pre-dawn breakthrough on Capitol Hill, Trump said he would sign an executive order to immediately pay 50,000 airport security workers. On Truth Social, the president said he would sign the order to “quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports”.
This comes amid historic wait times at airports and weeks of missed paychecks for TSA workers. US media has been full of images of gigantic queues at many airports across the country and angry flyers missing their planes.
The acting TSA chief, Ha Nguyen McNeill, said this week that some officers are sleeping in cars or selling plasma, and 40% have stopped reporting to work. The White House also said nearly 500 agents have quit since last month.
Funding for immigration enforcement has not lost steam, as Republicans continue to float the potential of passing this, along with money for the administration’s military campaign against Iran and portions of the Save America act, through reconciliation - a process that requires only a simple majority in the Senate.
Late Thursday, Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who chairs the budget committee, said that he will “proceed quickly and efficiently” to ensure “ICE and other vital functions of homeland security, as well as the US military and efforts to increase voter integrity, are Democrat-resistance proof”.
