‘Sense of urgency’ over airport lines as US Senate considers new DHS funding bid

WASHINGTON – Democratic leaders in the Senate on Thursday read through a new offer from Republicans to fund the Department of Homeland Security that could end the shutdown that began nearly six weeks ago, with a congressional recess set to begin.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in the afternoon that Democrats had not “officially” responded to a proposal that GOP negotiators sent in the morning but that discussions were still ongoing. He described it as the “final and final” offer.

“There were some language requests that they made and we did everything we could to accommodate them,” he said.

Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons said, “It’s a good sign that it’s going back and forth,” although he said the two political parties are still a bit far apart.

“I think TSA funding is very urgent,” he said, citing the Transportation Security Administration and long wait times at some of the country’s airports. Some unpaid TSA officers are calling in unwell, causing backups in security lines.

“But frankly, we’re not that far from where we’ve been for weeks, which is that Democrats want real reforms to ICE and CBP and refuse to fund them without reforms, and Republicans want us to fund them without reforms that go beyond what Secretary Noem has committed to,” Coons said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agencies.

Some Republican senators, he said, see it that way the confirmation from former Oklahoma Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin earlier this week as a sort of compromise on DHS’s immigration enforcement activities. Mullin replaced former secretary Kristi Noem.

However, that is not enough for the Democrats.

“My Republican friends have said on this issue, ‘Hey, Secretary Mullin committed to A, B, C, D in his confirmation,'” Coons said. “And that’s a far cry from saying, ‘We’ll put it in a law or we’ve promulgated it in an ordinance.’ So those are some of the problems. I think they feel that they have already offered significant reforms in the confirmation of Minister Mullin. And at least the senators I’ve spoken to believe that’s not enough.”

Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner said there was “a conundrum” about how to allocate more funding to Customs and Border Protection “without an agreement that they return to their statutory role and not have to do internal enforcement.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had not publicly commented on the Republicans’ latest offer as of behind schedule afternoon.

Trump promises “very drastic measures”

President Donald Trump said during a morning Cabinet meeting at the White House that he would like to see an early deal on DHS funding, but did not provide details of the latest offer.

“You have to end the shutdown immediately, otherwise we will have to take very drastic measures,” he said, failing to elaborate on what he meant.

Thune said he would leave the White House to speak for Trump about whether he supported the Republican DHS’s latest funding offer, but added that administration officials were “engaged in the back and forth that took place overnight and throughout the morning.”

“It’s never done until it’s done,” he said.

The timing of an agreement to fund DHS is somewhat significant because the House of Representatives is set to leave on Friday for a two-week spring recess, when its Senate counterparts are also scheduled to leave.

Thune said the chamber will likely go into recess if it funds DHS, but suspected that “we’ll probably be here to stay” if they don’t.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has not committed to submitting a revised DHS budget bill to the House, especially when it does not include funding for ICE’s enforcement and eviction efforts.

“We were never in favor of dismantling the bill,” he said.

But Johnson said it may be possible for Republicans to shift funding for this particular program through the intricate budget reconciliation process that the party used last year to approve tens of billions in additional funding for immigration enforcement and deportations in its “big, beautiful” bill.

“If they split off this part, I think we’ll have to finance it through reconciliation and find other means,” he said.

Working without pay

Employees at various agencies within DHS, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Secret Service, will continue to work without pay until Congress negotiates some type of funding deal for the department.

Any federal employee who deals with national security issues or the protection of life or property continues to work during a shutdown. Everyone else should be sent home. Everyone should get their salary back as soon as the shutdown is over.

TSA airport security screeners will miss their second full paycheck this weekend since the funding freeze began, after only receiving a partial paycheck at the start of the shutdown.

While TSA workers are forced to work for free during a shutdown, thousands have called in unwell over the past six weeks as they look for gig jobs and other ways to pay their bills. Deployment rates nationwide reached double digits this week, with more than 40% of employees missing work at some airports.

Some TSA workers have turned to selling plasma to make ends meet, union officials representing the agency’s employees told reporters Tuesday.

The staff shortage has led to hours-long waits in security lines at some busy airports, causing passengers to miss flights and increasing overall anxiety about air travel.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the administration is “having discussions about a number of ideas to mitigate the impact of the Democratic shutdown crisis, but no preparations or plans are underway at this time. The best and easiest way to pay TSA agents is to fund DHS.”

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.