WASHINGTON — House Republicans are gearing up to oppose a funding bill passed by the Senate that aims to reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security, extending a shutdown that has already lasted over 40 days.
This standoff threatens continued financial hardship for hundreds of thousands of federal employees who are not receiving paychecks, and offers no end in sight to the lengthy lines at airport security checkpoints.
“As it stands, it’s not going to get through,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told The Post shortly after former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows declared on X that the DHS bill was “dead in the House.”
House GOP members gathered for a conference call on Friday with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to discuss the Senate-approved funding bill, which had cleared earlier in the day.
Johnson is considering a temporary measure to fund all DHS agencies, including ICE and CBP, for 60 days. However, this would necessitate the Senate reconvening, according to three Republican aides.
A House Republican expressed frustration, stating that the Senate “shouldn’t have left town” before the bill was delivered to President Trump’s desk.
“PSA to senate schedulers: may want to book a return flight for your boss,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) also posted on X. “Our work here isn’t finished.”
The Senate-passed measure would open DHS agencies except Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as portions of Custom and Border Protection.
Republicans already secured funding for those agencies in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill last July, though several are hopeful that additional spending can be tucked into a second reconciliation bill in the near future.
Senate Democrats have held up the funding for 42 days in protest of ICE and CBP-involved fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota earlier this year.
“They ended up getting no reforms but, you know, we’re going to have to fight some of those battles another day,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said of his Democratic colleagues.
Trump also threatened to free up funding via executive order and began placing ICE agents at airports to backfill missing Transportation Security Administration personnel. He announced Thursday that he’s planning an executive order to pay TSA agents through emergency powers.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared victory and said Democrats “held the line” to prevent a “blank check” from going to “lawless” ICE and CBP — before leaving town for a two-week recess during Easter and Passover.
More than 480 Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) quit and as many as 50% were calling out of work as the shutdown dragged on, a top TSA official testified to Congress on Monday. The lack of pay had some TSA agents selling their blood and sleeping in their cars to make ends meet.
Passengers have been suffering the highest wait times in TSA history, the official also told lawmakers, and if the funding fight continued, smaller US airports were under threat of having to close down.
Even former Attorney General Bill Barr was photographed Wednesday waiting among thousands of others trying to catch flights out of George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston — which saw some of the worst delays at wait times of four hours or more.
