DHS Funding Follies Continue

On Wednesday afternoon, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced he would reverse course and bring a Senate spending bill that would fund DHS through the end of September to a House vote, potentially ending a department shutdown that has left most personnel without paychecks. It’s part of a two-track deal, because it would leave ICE and CBP unfunded pending passage of a “reconciliation” bill that would pay for those agencies without Democrats’ support. The funding follies over immigration continue, however, because at this point, it’s not clear the House GOP will go along, or even what ransom the Democrats who are holding the department hostage are demanding.

The Shutdown

By Valentines Day, February 14, Congress had passed funding bills for every government department and agency through the end of FY 2026, with the sole exception of DHS.

Congressional Democrats used the shooting death of Alex Pretti during an immigration-enforcement action in Minneapolis in late January 24 as a pretext to demand restrictions on ICE and CBP operations, including requiring agents to obtain judicial warrants before entering private property; barring immigration arrests at hospitals, daycare centers, schools, and churches; prohibiting ICE officers from wearing masks; and requiring them to wear bodycams.

On March 17, Trump “Border Czar” Tom Homan sent a letter to Senate leadership agreeing to some of the Democrats’ demands, including the bodycams, limits on “civil immigration enforcement at certain sensitive locations”, and use of “visible officer identification for DHS law enforcement carrying out immigration enforcement activities”.

Other of the demands, Homan contended, “would make it impossible to fully protect American citizens from dangerous criminal aliens and expose law enforcement and their families to increasing threats of violence”, and would “prioritize illegal aliens above American families”.

After going without pay for weeks, by March 25 nearly 500 TSA officers had quit and more than 11 percent of the remaining ones (3,100-plus) didn’t show up for work, creating long lines at some airports.

On March 27, the president issued a presidential memorandum, “Paying Our Great Transportation Security Administration Officers and Employees”, directing the Office of Management and Budget and DHS secretary to “use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown”.

CNBC reports the cash is likely being drawn from section 90007 of Pub. L. 119-21, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, which allocated $10 billion “for reimbursement of costs incurred in undertaking activities in support of the Department of Homeland Security’s mission to safeguard the borders of the United States”, the latter a term that arguably would cover international airports.

That said, the money was intended for use at the physical borders, the ones separating the United States from Mexico, Canada, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Gulf of America — not to pay the folks checking IDs and monitoring the magnetometers at Atlanta Hartsfield.

Consequently, the move is arguably tricky from a legal standpoint, but in any event real appropriations from the Hill are needed to fund other DHS activities, like FEMA and the Coast Guard, as well as ICE and CBP.

Using a slick legislative maneuver, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) snuck a DHS funding bill that didn’t include the latter two agencies through the upper chamber in the dead of morning on March 27, directly before the body adjourned for its two-week Easter break.

That sent the bill to the House, where Speaker Johnson derided it as a “joke” and opted instead to bring a 60-day DHS temporary funding measure that would have continued all of the department’s activities to the floor of the House, where it passed by a vote of 213 to 203.

That proposal then went to the Senate, which is shuttered except for a brief, daily, pro-forma session until April 13 and where, consequently, no real legislating is occurring.

“Mike Johnson Caves to Democrats’ DHS Funding Bill Demands”

Which brings me to an April 1, 2026, article in Newsweek headlined, “Mike Johnson Caves to Democrats’ DHS Funding Bill Demands”.

It describes the two-track strategy Thune and the speaker have agreed upon for funding DHS, explaining: “The plan called for the House to move the Senate-approved measure that funds most of DHS now, excluding” ICE and CBP “and then use budget reconciliation to fund those enforcement agencies over the coming weeks or months”.

Chad Pergram from Fox News tweeted out the following statement from the congressional Republican leaders:

By Thursday, however, D.C. tipsheet The Hill was reporting conservative Republicans in the House were pushing back on the plan.

Trump then entered the fray, posting on Truth Social:

Note that MS NOW’s headline on its coverage of the spending deal echoed Newsweek’s, “Mike Johnson caves on Senate’s DHS deal, paving way to end shutdown”, but if the speaker actually “caved” to anyone, it’s more likely to Trump than either Thune or the Democrats.

“There Are Days ... into Which a Whole Lifetime is Compressed”

In his 1908 novel The Devil, author Adriaan Schade van Westrum wrote: “There are years, centuries, in which nothing happens, and there are days ... into which a whole lifetime is compressed.”

A version of that quote is wrongly attributed to Vladimir Lenin (likely because the founder of the Soviet Union is more noteworthy than an early 19th century Dutch-American novelist whose books are out of print), but it’s fair to argue that Trump II has packed decades of action into the last 15 months.

So much so, it appears, that major events like the DHS shutdown (the longest in U.S. history) and the air war over Iran are notable only in passing, unless of course you’re the one stuck at the airport checkpoint or have a child or spouse in service in the Persian Gulf.

At this point, it’s not entirely clear what congressional Democrats actually want in exchange for a full funding package, though it appears that frustrating Trump is simply an end in itself for those in the Party of Jackson.

A man in constant motion, however, is unlikely to be impeded for long, which is why it makes sense for the president to want the DHS funding fight in the rearview mirror and press Johnson to force his conference on accepting the package Thune proposed and move on.

A Dangerous Precedent

Regardless, moving DHS appropriations without funding all of DHS sets a dangerous precedent.

Democrats will likely (and reasonably) conclude that, so long as Republicans run the House and Senate, they won’t ever have to fund immigration enforcement and can begin starving ICE and CBP for funding once they take over one or both bodies.

Fair enough, but Republicans will likely have long memories and employ similar tactics when the money is intended for something their base doesn’t like, such as foreign aid, Obamacare, or environmental subsidies.

For good or bad, Trump is a singular figure and immigration — his signature issue — is the hottest of buttons. Even if the House holds out, these issues won’t go away anytime soon.

Congress created DHS to move all federal activities relevant to homeland security under one roof, but in so doing it made the department vulnerable to kidnappers, who at the moment don’t seem to be certain what ransom they are demanding in exchange for their hostages.