The Senate early Friday passed a partial Department of Homeland Security funding bill, as Republicans caved to Democrats’ refusal to fund ICE and border patrol.
The measure now heads to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, has expressed opposition to breaking up DHS funding and could struggle to wrangle GOP support for the measure.
The Senate passed the bill by voice vote at 2:19 a.m. and then adjourned for a two-week recess for the Easter and Passover holidays.
GOP leaders could not get the support of all 100 senators to pass the measure by unanimous consent, but no senator showed up to demand a roll call vote.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., …
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said Thursday that Republicans had made their “last and final” offer to Democrats on DHS funding.
As the parties spent all day in a stalemate, President Trump announced an executive order to pay Transportation Security Administration agents. Airports have been experiencing record security line wait times because many TSA agents have quit or called out of work during the shutdown.
Mr. Thune did not want the Senate to leave town without acting, however. He ultimately reversed course on the “last and final” offer with a new bill that cut even more from the department’s budget than the $5.5 billion for immigration enforcement that the GOP’s previous offer removed.
Mr. Thune said Republicans did not want to fund DHS on a piecemeal basis but felt the urgency to reopen as many agencies as they could, so tens of thousands of workers could get paid and critical department responsibilities could resume.
“Since Democrats have made fiscal year 2026 the year they choose to repudiate one of their most basic responsibilities as members of Congress, to fund the government, this is what we have been reduced to,” he said.
The bill fully funds eight of the 10 agencies under DHS, including TSA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Coast Guard and Secret Service.
It excludes money for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and much of Customs and Border Protection. For the latter, the customs functions of the agency are funded, but border patrol operations are not.
Democrats did not get any of the immigration enforcement policy demands they began pushing after the second death of an American citizen in Minneapolis early this year.
But Republicans still effectively caved to Democrats’ repeatedly pushed position that Congress should fund all of DHS, except for ICE and CBP while lawmakers continued to negotiate their disputes over the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
“This could’ve been accomplished weeks ago if Republicans hadn’t stood in the way,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said. “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.”
ICE and CBP have a separate stream of funding for immigration and enforcement and border security that Republicans approved in their One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer.
GOP lawmakers said they will try to pass another filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package to increase that funding, since Democrats would not approve more money in the annual DHS appropriations bill.
Senate Republicans tried separately to pass ICE and CBP funding by unanimous consent, but Democrats objected.
“Congressional Democrats have done real damage to the appropriations process by repeatedly forcing government shutdowns and refusing to fund entire agencies,” Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, Maine Republican, said. “Their refusal to fund ICE and Border Patrol leaves our borders and our country less secure and sets a precedent that they may one day come to regret.”
Ms. Collins said Republicans tried to negotiate a deal with Democrats on immigration enforcement policy changes, offering proposals on use of body cameras, limits to enforcement in sensitive areas, such as schools and hospitals, increased oversight of detention facilities and a requirement for agents to display identification.
“While Republicans worked in good faith to try to reach agreement, Democrats remained intransigent and unreasonable with their list of demands,” she said.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democratic appropriator, said it was important for her party to stand its ground on behalf of the American people and that the pressure has forced the administration to make changes to the way it conducts immigration enforcement, despite much of it not being codified in the DHS bill.
“We have rejected the ridiculous false choice that the only way to prevent chaos at our airports is by cutting another blank check for President Trump and Stephen Miller,” she said. “Speaking up matters. We’ve got to keep fighting and demanding the accountability the American people deserve.”
