Senate Funds DHS But Strips ICE and Border Patrol in Bid to End 42-Day Shutdown Crisis

The Senate voted unanimously after 2am to fund TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and CISA — but not a penny for immigration enforcement. The bill now goes to a hostile House. TSA workers have gone six weeks without pay.

After 42 days of the longest partial government shutdown in a decade, the United States Senate approved a bill in the early hours of Friday morning to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security — with one glaring exception. The legislation funds TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. It does not include a single dollar for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or US Customs and Border Protection.

The vote came by unanimous consent after 2am, in a chamber that had spent six weeks unable to agree on anything related to DHS. The breakthrough came not from compromise but from exhaustion — and from the political impossibility of continuing to leave 60,000 TSA screeners unpaid while airport security lines stretched to three hours at major hubs.

How We Got Here

The shutdown began on February 13 when Congress failed to pass a full-year DHS appropriations bill. Democrats refused to approve what they called a "blank check" for ICE and Border Patrol, citing what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described as "lawless" enforcement tactics. Republicans refused to fund DHS without immigration enforcement. The result was a standoff that left a quarter of a million DHS employees in limbo.

The human cost has been staggering. TSA screeners — who earn a median salary of $47,000 — have worked without pay since mid-February. Callout rates surged past 20% at some airports. Security lines at JFK, LAX, and O'Hare regularly exceeded two hours. Business travellers rebooked. Tourists cancelled. Airlines estimated losses in the hundreds of millions.

What the Bill Does

The Senate bill funds TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, CISA, and the Secret Service through the end of the fiscal year on September 30. It includes back pay for all furloughed employees and those who worked without compensation during the shutdown. It does not restrict or expand any immigration enforcement authority — it simply provides no money for it.

The effect is precise: ICE and CBP remain unfunded, their operations constrained to whatever reserves and reprogramming authority the administration can scrape together. Democrats argue this is the natural consequence of Republican overreach. Republicans call it an act of sabotage.

The House Problem

The bill now moves to the House, where its prospects are uncertain at best. Speaker Mike Johnson has resisted splitting DHS funding from the start. On a conference call with House Republicans on Friday morning, Johnson signalled he would instead bring a 60-day continuing resolution to the floor — funding all of DHS at current levels while negotiations continue.

That approach has its own problems. Hard-right members who triggered the shutdown in the first place are unlikely to accept a clean CR without immigration provisions. Democrats may refuse to help pass a temporary measure when a full-year bill is already on the table. The result could be more weeks of shutdown.

The Political Fallout

The DHS shutdown has become a slow-motion political disaster for both parties, but the damage is asymmetric. Polls consistently show that voters blame congressional Republicans more than Democrats for the impasse, particularly on the TSA issue. The spectacle of airport chaos, combined with the Iran conflict and rising energy prices, has created a public mood that is hostile to anyone who appears to be playing games with government functions.

The Senate's middle-of-the-night vote was an act of triage, not governance. It stopped the bleeding on the most visible aspects of the shutdown while leaving the underlying immigration fight unresolved. That fight will continue — in the House, in the courts, and almost certainly on the campaign trail through November.