Senate votes to fund much of DHS, minus immigration enforcement

The Senate voted overnight to fund much of the Department of Homeland Security after a 42-day standoff over immigration enforcement tactics.

The measure does not include additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol — and it does not include any of the demands Democrats made to limit the tactics of federal immigration officers.

The legislation now goes to the House for a vote.

The DHS funding lapse forced tens of thousands of employees to work without pay or quit, and resulted in long waits at some airports amid peak spring break travel.

For weeks, Democrats have refused to support funding for DHS after federal officers killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

The latest package allowed Democrats to fund operations like the Transportation Safety Administration, or TSA, the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, while still pressing for additional guardrails on immigration enforcement officers.

"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," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor. "I'm very proud of our Democratic caucus. Throughout it all, Senate Democrats stood united — no wavering, no backing down. We held the line."

But some Democrats have warned that a funding agreement without the policy changes they are seeking diminishes their leverage. Senate Republicans have indicated that the time to negotiate has now passed.

"We could be standing here right now passing a funding bill with a list of reforms if Democrats had made the smallest effort to actually reach an agreement, but they didn't," Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on the floor early Friday morning. "It is now clear to everyone that Democrats didn't actually want a solution, they wanted an issue."

The department has been operating without regular appropriations for more than a month. But some divisions, like ICE, have continued to function thanks to about $75 billion provided by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Republicans passed last summer. Others, including the TSA, have relied on employees working without pay.

Ha Nguyen McNeill, the TSA acting administrator, told lawmakers at a hearing on Wednesday that absences are as high as 40% in some airports and more than 480 TSA officers have quit during the shutdown.

"We are really concerned about our security posture and what the long term impacts of this shutdown is going to have on the workforce and our ability to carry out this mission," McNeill said.

Negotiations under pressure

All week, top Republicans opposed funding DHS piecemeal. On Thursday, Thune said Republicans had delivered Democrats a final offer: fund all of DHS, including ICE, except the division responsible for enforcement and removal operations.

At least a handful of Democrats seemed open to this option, but worried the administration would use funding for other ICE divisions for enforcement and removal operations. Throughout the day, negotiators shuttled between the Senate chamber and Thune's office, trading language.

But by the evening, lawmakers were still struggling to reach an agreement to end the impasse, even as many viewed the worsening situation at the nation's airports as untenable.

Then, President Trump announced he would unilaterally move to declare a national emergency and pay TSA agents. It was not immediately clear where that money would come from – and whether such a move was legal.

Earlier in the week, Trump insisted that any DHS funding deal also include the voting law overhaul he wants ahead of the midterms, known as the Save America Act.

Not long after Trump's TSA announcement Thursday night, Thune told reporters about an agreement to fund most of DHS except for ICE and Border Patrol. The legislation was approved by voice vote after 2 a.m. with just a few members on the floor.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Thursday that House Republicans have not been in favor of breaking up the funding, calling it "shameful" to fail to fund the agency. It is unclear how the House will respond to the agreement.

Top Republicans have pledged to fund ICE through a party-line reconciliation bill that would include elements of the Trump-backed voting bill.

Such a package would not require buy-in from Democrats, but the effort is not a sure bet. It is unclear how much of the Save America Act could move through reconciliation, which can only be used for changes that directly affect the budget. And Republicans may also differ about what else should be included, such as additional funds for the war with Iran.

Congress is scheduled to leave Washington today for a two-week recess, meaning lawmakers will return next month to unresolved debates on two knotty issues: immigration enforcement tactics and voting procedures.

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