GOP leaders Thune and Johnson boost two-track approach to funding DHS

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Wednesday backed a two-track plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security, paving the way to fund the Transportation Security Administration in the near-term while punting debate over the agency’s more controversial immigration enforcement functions. 

The announcement amounts to a reversion back to the bill the Senate passed last week that would have funded all of DHS except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection. Democrats have called for changes to immigration enforcement practices before funding those sub-agencies.

Initial DHS funding for most of the department would be followed by a second measure using a Senate procedure known as budget reconciliation for ICE And CBP, the Republican leaders said Wednesday in a joint statement. Used only for spending-related measures, that process allows the Senate to approve with a simple minority, as opposed to the 60-votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

“In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process,” Thune and Johnson said in the statement.

Congress is in the first week of a two-week recess and is not due to return until April 13. DHS has been shut down since February, after federal agents killed to U.S. citizens in Minneapolis as part of an immigration crackdown. Democrats have refused to fund the agency until changes to DHS’s immigration enforcement policies are implemented.

Thune and Johnson’s joint statement came after the House GOP revolted on Friday and killed the Senate plan.

Rather than take a vote on the Senate DHS bill that advanced early Friday morning, Johnson announced a plan to pass a stopgap spending measure that would fund all of the agency at its current levels through May 22. That continuing resolution passed 213-203, with three Democrats joining all Republicans in support.

Johnson’s strategy guaranteed the extension of the shutdown that had disrupted air travel across the country, as unpaid TSA agents called out of work and quit in large numbers, ramping up pressure on lawmakers to reach an agreement ahead of heavy travel for the Passover and Easter holidays in early April.

But Congress got some cover from President Donald Trump, who announced last week he would draw from unspent funds from the 2025 Republican tax and spending package, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to pay TSA agents. Those agents began to receive…