House Republicans’ gambit to end the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown survived a critical hurdle on Friday evening, teeing up a chamber-wide vote that will put the chamber on a collision course with the Senate.
The House Rules Committee advanced a two-month DHS stopgap measure after House GOP leadership vigorously rejected a Senate-passed deal earlier on Friday with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., dubbing the funding bill a “joke.” President Donald Trump also criticized the Senate bill in an interview with Fox News.
The Senate deal provided full-year appropriations for DHS minus funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), halting roughly $5.5 billion for the agency. It also largely nixed funds for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), save for just over $11 billion for operations and support.
“The Senate’s proposal is nothing more than unconditional surrender masquerading as a solution, and the House will not bend itself into submission by acquiescing,” House Rules Committee Chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said Friday.
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House Republicans are expected to have the votes to pass the 60-day CR in a chamber-wide vote, though Johnson will be able to spare just one GOP defection in a party-line scenario. A vote on final passage could occur as early as Friday evening.
House Democrats are expected to line up against the short-term funding patch, citing their opposition to funding Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts absent myriad reforms. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is also pinning the blame on House Republicans for prolonging the 42-day government shutdown.
“This could end and should end today,” Jeffries said Friday. “There is a bipartisan bill that has been sent over from the Senate that would reopen the non-controversial parts of the Department of Homeland Security, make sure TSA agents are paid and end the chaos at airports throughout the nation.”
Any CR from the House stands no chance of surviving in the Senate, given that Senate Democrats blocked numerous attempts by Republicans throughout the shutdown to pass short-term, two-week extensions.
Lawmakers in the upper chamber have also left Washington, D.C., with some going abroad on congressional delegations.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., immediately came out against Johnson’s plan and said that Democrats and Republicans reached unanimous agreement to advance the DHS funding bill while carving out immigration enforcement funding.
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“A 60-day CR that locks in the status-quo is dead on arrival in the Senate, and Republicans know it,” Schumer said.
And a GOP aide told Fox News Digital that “the easiest way to end this shutdown is for the House to pass the Senate-passed bill.”
“We know the Democrats are not going to support a CR, in fact the Senate tried to pass CRs for the last 40 days and Dems have blocked Every. Single. One,” they said.
When asked about its uncertain prospects in the Senate, House GOP leadership Conference Chair Lisa McClain, R-Mich., told Fox News Digital that she hoped the upper chamber returned to Washington next week.
“I will tell you what can’t pass is what is what the Senate sent us at three in the morning,” McClain said. “We will not go back to the Biden administration, where we had wide open borders.”
Senate Republicans are already determined to front-load funding for ICE and CBP for the next several years in a new budget reconciliation bill, just as they did last year when Congress passed President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
However, McClain insisted Friday that funding for ICE and Border Patrol must be handled through the appropriations process, rather than receiving additional money through another party-line megabill.
“Border deserves a guarantee. I’m not willing to roll the dice on ‘Oh, let’s try and do it in reconciliation.’ No. Let’s do what the American people sent us here in the ‘24 election to do, and that’s make sure our people are safe and our borders remain closed.”
