WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Trump announced he will sign an executive order to pay all Department of Homeland Security employees. This follows a historically long shutdown for the DHS. There’s also new developments on Capitol Hill to fund DHS.
For more than a month, DHS has been shutdown. Democrats have demanded reforms for ICE and Border Patrol following their heavily scrutinized immigration and enforcement tactics. Senate and House Republican leadership were split on an agreement and passed their own measures for DHS last week, but GOP leadership recently announced they’re on a path to pass a two-track approach to fund all of DHS.
The first is through the Senate’s measure which would reopen most of DHS including TSA, FEMA and the Coast Guard but does not include funding for ICE and Border Patrol. Republicans would also try to pass a bill through reconciliation, which is a procedural move, to fund Border Patrol and ICE. They would not need Democratic support to pass it through that way.
“Homeland Security and Immigration Control can’t be put at sacrifice because of a political agenda,” said Rep. Mike Kelly (R- PA). “Our agenda should be the oath of office we take and if you look at that it’s hard for me to understand why anybody serving right now can say ‘we’re gonna take that funding away unless you do this and do away with those people completely.’”
Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R- PA) shared this statement with us when we asked about how DHS funding should move forward: “DHS keeps our country safe, which is why I have supported bipartisan action to fund it four times this year. This is about the safety of all Americans.”
Rep. Nick Langworthy (R- NY) shared this statement with us when we asked about how DHS funding should move forward: “My priority is getting the government reopen and our front-line workers paid as it always has been. I’ve voted to fully fund the government five times now. We need to get it done.”
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D- NY) shared this statement with us when we asked about DHS funding: “Democrats are united: we will not give ICE or Border Patrol a blank check without substantial, commonsense reforms. The full Senate has twice now advanced legislation to fund key parts of DHS—including TSA, FEMA, cyber defense, and the Coast Guard—without funding ICE and Border Patrol. But Mike Johnson and House Republicans blocked both of those efforts.
Republican dysfunction has caused the longest partial government shutdown in history, creating chaos at airports, undermining our national security, and forcing hardworking Americans to miss their paychecks. That is unacceptable. House Republicans must get to work and end this shutdown.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R- SD) maintains Republicans are unified.
“We’re all aligned, we are all headed in the same direction,” said Sen. Thune. “Obviously we have different procedures in the Senate that they have to deal with in the House. I never try to tell them how to do their work. Obviously they’ve got to make those decisions, but I think in terms of how we were going to get to the outcome here, there were very limited options available to us given the obstruction of the Democrats.”
House and Senate are still out on recess until mid-April. It still might take awhile before they fully reopen DHS.
