Shutdown poised to continue for DHS after House, Senate take diverging paths

The Homeland Security Department shutdown appears poised to continue after the Senate and House took diverging paths on Friday, leaving the agency unfunded as lawmakers leave Washington for a two-week recess. 

The Senate early Friday morning unanimously passed a measure to fund all of DHS except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, the two agencies most central to carrying out President Trump’s immigration crackdown. ICE and CBP are currently operating normally and paying employees using existing appropriations and Republicans planned to separately pass a bill to fully fund the agencies. 

That plan to largely end the single-agency shutdown, which began Feb. 14, was disrupted later in the day, however, when House Republicans balked at the Senate’s bill. Instead, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the chamber will vote Friday evening on a bill to extend funding for all of DHS for 60 days. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has already declared such a bill dead on arrival and senators have left town anyway. 

Johnson told reporters on Friday he was caught off guard by the Senate’s actions and he would not go along with funding DHS if ICE and CBP were not included. 

The shutdown has left more than 100,000 DHS employees without immediate pay, leading to significant impacts including long lines at airports due to callouts from Transportation Security Administration employees. Trump sought to alleviate at least that concern on Friday by unilaterally opting to use funds from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to pay those workers. Most other furloughed and excepted DHS employees, such as those at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, civilians at the U.S. Coast Guard and others will continue to see their paychecks delayed. 

Trump this week deployed ICE personnel to airports to assist TSA with security efforts. 

Congressional Democrats had been holding out on funding DHS until the White House agreed to reforms at ICE and CBP. Their repeated attempts to fund TSA and other non-immigration components of DHS had been blocked by Republicans until Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., brought up a similar measure at 2 a.m. on Friday and it passed by unanimous consent. 

House lawmakers are also expected to leave Washington following their Friday evening vote on the 60-day continuing resolution with no plan for getting a DHS funding bill to Trump’s desk.