Senate Unanimously Agrees to DHS Funding Deal in Overnight Session, with a Catch
Funding for Transportation Security Administration workers moved a step closer to reality early Friday after the Senate unanimously passed a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection.
In February, Senate Democrats refused to pass DHS funding, which meant TSA workers went unpaid. That triggered a chain of events in which resignations and absences caused massive lines at airports, turning the political standoff into a public relations nightmare.
Republicans said that they allowed Democrats to win the battle over ICE and Border Patrol funding because they expect to win the war, according to Fox News.
The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress last year gave ICE and the Border Patrol $75 billion, which Republicans hope will tide the agencies over until the GOP can use a process called budget reconciliation to fund the agencies.
That process addresses budget-related issues and relies upon a simple majority vote. The process for approving the budget required 60 votes, which gave Democrats leverage.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Democrats ended up having held TSA workers hostage while coming up empty on the draconian changes they wanted in immigration enforcement operations.
“We’ve been trying for weeks to fund the whole thing,” Thune said. “And, I mean, in the end, this is what they were willing to agree to. But again, it’s different that it has zero reforms in it. I mean, they got no reforms on DHS, which they could have had if they had been willing to work with us a little bit on that.”
“The good news is we anticipated this a year ago. I mean, one of the reasons we front loaded, pre-loaded up the ‘one big, beautiful bill’ with advanced funding for Homeland Security was because we anticipated this was likely going to happen, and it did,” Thune said. “I still think it’s unfortunate. The Dems wanted reforms. We tried to work with them on reforms. They ended up getting no reforms.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, envisions funding ICE and CBP for several years.
“Democrats are trying to shut down ICE funding for the remainder of the fiscal year — ultimately they won’t be successful,” Schmitt said in a post on X. “In response, I’ll be pushing to lock in funding for deportation operations and salaries for a decade.”
Democrats are trying to shut down ICE funding for the remainder of the fiscal year — ultimately they won’t be successful.
In response, I’ll be pushing to lock in funding for deportation operations and salaries for a decade.
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) March 27, 2026
The DHS deal came after President Donald Trump told Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to pay TSA agents with the money DHS has in its various accounts, according to CNN.
Trump’s order could come into play if the House does not approve the Senate’s legislation.
“I mean, the House is aware of what we’re contemplating, I think, and I — think they’re probably anxious to take this up any more than, you know, this time of the day, on a Friday, but hopefully they’ll be around and we can get at least a lot of the government opened up again, and then we’ll, we’ll go from there,” Thune said.
Democrats “ended up getting no reforms. But, you know, we’re going to have to fight some of those battles another day,” Thune said.
Thune said Democrats lost an opportunity to make changes they claimed they wanted.
“Democrats didn’t actually want a solution. They wanted an issue. Politics over policy, self-interest over reform, pandering to their base instead of actually solving the problem,” he said.
As of Thursday, prior to the overnight vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson had not committed to putting whatever the Senate passed to a Friday floor vote, according to The Washington Post.
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