Senate passes bill to fund most of DHS after House GOP caves
The 48-day Department of Homeland Security shutdown is one step closer to ending after the Senate moved to fund most of the department Thursday morning.The Senate agreed via voice vote...
By Fox News · Fox News
The 48-day Department of Homeland Security shutdown is one step closer to ending after the Senate moved to fund most of the department Thursday morning. The Senate agreed via voice vote to send a bipartisan deal funding the whole department except for President Donald Trump 's immigration enforcement and border security efforts to the House for consideration. The chamber is not expected to vote on the legislation until House lawmakers return to Washington on April 13. The Senate vote follows GOP leaders endorsing a two-track approach to funding DHS on Wednesday, with President Trump giving lawmakers a hard deadline to end the record-breaking funding lapse. HOUSE CONSERVATIVES RAGE AGAINST SENATE DHS SHUTDOWN DEAL The Senate bill accomplishes the first phase of the plan by working with Democrats to fund as much of DHS as possible on a bipartisan basis. However, it would zero out funding for ICE and much of the Border Patrol, save for $11 billion in customs funding going to the agency. Additionally, $10 billion teed up for ICE won't be funded under the measure. As for ICE and the Border Patrol, Republicans have said they will seek three full years of funding for both of these agencies in a party-line budget reconciliation package that will bypass Democrats’ opposition. Trump says he wants the forthcoming bill on his desk by June 1. "We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday. The Senate bill’s passage on Thursday was a déjà vu moment for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who helped steer the same measure through the upper chamber last week. But House GOP leadership sharply rejected it, calling the measure’s exclusion of ICE and CBP money a "crap sandwich" and warning about the risks of funding those entities using the budget reconciliation process. The chamber then put forward a rival proposal t…