House Republicans pass rival DHS plan, setting up Senate fight as shutdown set to become longest in history

House Republicans passed a short-term funding patch for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over the fierce objections of Democratic lawmakers late Friday evening.

But the 42-day shutdown that has snarled air travel and left tens of thousands of federal employees without pay is far from over.

House lawmakers voted 213-203 largely along party lines to approve a two-month funding extension for the beleaguered department, which has been operating without full-year appropriations since the funding lapse began on Feb. 14. 

Reps. Don Davis, D-N.C., Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, crossed party lines to support the measure. More than a dozen lawmakers did not vote.

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The House-passed DHS measure faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where Democrats have filibustered GOP-authored legislation that includes immigration funding for the past six weeks. 

Both chambers are scheduled to leave Washington for an Easter recess without ending the funding standoff, paving the way for the partial government shutdown to become the longest in history. 

“In those eight weeks, we will figure this out with Democrats and figure out a couple of reforms or whatever they need to make sure that we do this right, but we are going to protect the homeland. We have to,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said on the Ingraham Angle on Friday evening. “It’s the most important and most basic function of Congress, and Democrats don’t want to do that.”

Democratic lawmakers, who have repeatedly voted against DHS spending bills funding President Donald Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown absent reforms, echoed the same position Friday. 

“House Republicans have decided that they would rather inconvenience you, create chaos for you and for your families so that they can continue to jam their extreme right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people so they can continue to spend billions of dollars for ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to brutalize and kill American citizens,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during a news conference Friday. 

The vote came after House GOP leadership and the conservative House Freedom Caucus unequivocally rejected a Senate-passed deal earlier on Friday. The agreement, which passed the Senate unanimously, would have funded the vast majority of DHS sub-agencies minus ICE and parts of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The National Border Patrol Council endorsed the House bill late Friday, arguing the Senate’s failure to fund all of DHS is “completely unacceptable and should not stand.”

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Senate Republicans have teased a second “big, beautiful” bill to give additional funding to ICE and the Border Patrol, though that could be a difficult feat in an election year with slim majorities in both chambers.

“It wasn’t good. It wasn’t appropriate,” Trump told Fox News in an interview Friday, referring to the Senate agreement. “You can’t have a bill that’s not going to fund ICE.”

House GOP leadership has also voiced concern about funding ICE and the Border Patrol through a second budget reconciliation package.

“That’s a very difficult task. It is a high-risk gamble for us to assume that we could do that,” Johnson told the Ingraham Angle. “And in the meantime, people are still going unpaid in this. We’ve got to make sure that we take care of those who take care of ourselves.”

The most pressing pain point of the shutdown — a shortage of Transportation Security Administration employees at airports nationwide — is set to be alleviated. The staffing constraints had created hours-long wait times at TSA security checkpoints, leading to travel disruptions and missed flights.

Trump, through an executive order, directed DHS to pay the more than 50,000 TSA personnel who had been reporting to work without compensation since the start of the shutdown to cover their salaries. The agents are expected to receive their first full paychecks in more than six weeks on Monday.