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Republican leaders are rallying around President Donald Trump’s new approach to end the 47-day Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding lapse — a plan that could make the agency shutdown-proof for the rest of Trump’s term.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Wednesday that DHS will be funded along “two parallel tracks,” meaning that the president’s immigration and border security agenda will receive an influx of money through a party-line reconciliation bill. The rest of DHS is funded through the normal appropriations process.
“We operated under a belief that while our country is in the midst of an international armed conflict, Democrats might finally come to their senses and understand that defunding our homeland security agencies is beyond reckless and very dangerous,” Johnson and Thune wrote in a joint statement. “We cannot allow Democrats to any longer put the safety of the American public at risk through their open border policies, so we are taking that off the table.”
The GOP leaders added that a forthcoming budget reconciliation package will include three years of immigration enforcement and border security funding. That move could prevent Democrats from using the appropriations process as leverage over the president’s immigration agenda for the remainder of his term.
HOUSE CONSERVATIVES ERUPT OVER SENATE GOP, WHITE HOUSE DEAL AMID SAVE ACT FIGHT
The GOP leaders’ budget reconciliation push comes as Republican efforts to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) through regular order have stalled in the Senate due to widespread opposition from Democrats.
With the Senate’s 60-vote legislative threshold in place, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., effectively has veto power over DHS appropriations if he keeps his caucus in line.
To end the stalemate, Trump asked Republicans Wednesday to draft a budget reconciliation package funding immigration enforcement and border security that could pass both chambers without any Democratic support.
“We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We will not allow them to hurt the families of these Great Patriots by defunding them.”
The president added that he wants the legislation on his desk by June 1.
The budget reconciliation process would allow Republicans to steer around Democratic opposition and pass a DHS funding bill at a simple majority threshold. Republicans narrowly passed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act using reconciliation in June 2025 after months of intraparty squabbling.
Though ICE and the Border Patrol received an unprecedented infusion of money through Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill, certain support staff employed by both agencies have not been paid during the seven-week shutdown.
The U.S. Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Secret Service have seen a more significant lapse in appropriations, though Trump took executive action to provide back pay to TSA agents reporting to work during the funding lapse.
HOUSE REPUBLICANS PASS RIVAL DHS PLAN, SETTING UP SENATE FIGHT AS SHUTDOWN SET TO BECOME LONGEST IN HISTORY
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., indicated to reporters Monday that Trump would ultimately get behind the Senate’s preferred approach.
“The Democrats can’t create another shutdown like they did this time,” Hoeven said, if the DHS budget reconciliation bill were to be signed into law.
The North Dakota lawmaker also disputed that a reconciliation package would take several months to put together.
“We’ll get it done as quick as you can,” Hoeven said. “I hope it’s certainly not months.”
A second reconciliation package could prove more difficult in an election year when lawmakers will have to identify spending cuts to pay for the border security and immigration funding. The strategy could also extend the funding lapse for ICE and the Border Patrol for several more months.
Amid both chambers’ planned two-week recesses, Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday he is considering calling Congress back to Washington to find a solution to the DHS shutdown.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday that a “skinny reconciliation bill” funding the department would pass both chambers once Congress resumes session in mid-April if a deal has not been reached.
House GOP leadership has previously voiced skepticism about funding immigration enforcement through a budget reconciliation package. Some conservatives have also complained about the precedent of letting Democrats decide which agencies receive funding through the normal appropriations process.
“The problem is that what they’re doing is they’re placing the burden on the Republican Party entirely to make sure that we have border security funding and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, because they’re going to try to force it into a reconciliation bill,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on Friday. “That’s a very difficult task. It is a high risk gamble for us to assume that we could do that.”
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