An attempt by Senate GOP leaders to reopen the Department of Homeland Security while punting on immigration enforcement funding blew up within hours, after President Donald Trump issued an angry rejection of the proposal Sunday night.
Hoping to find a bipartisan fix for ending a one-month partial shutdown, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., asked Trump to consider a plan that would allow Congress to pass full-year funding for the beleaguered department except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Democrats would get a key piece of what they’ve been angling for: full-year funding for critical agencies like the Transportation Security Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency, while ICE would have to wait until there’s a bipartisan deal on immigration enforcement policies.
Democrats have also demanded to drop Customs and Border Protection from the package and negotiate that separately along with ICE; it wasn’t immediately clear whether CBP was addressed in Thune’s offer.
Thune’s proposal, first reported by Punchbowl News, included a key difference: Republicans could provide ICE funding through a second filibuster-proof reconciliation bill to enact more partisan policies, and without the immigration enforcement overhaul Democrats have been seeking. At minimum, Democrats wouldn’t have to cast politically difficult votes to fund ICE.
This is a strategy that some Senate Republicans have been floating in recent days to break the logjam, as airport wait times across the country get worse. Nearly 12 percent of the TSA security workforce, which isn’t getting paid during the partial shutdown, called out of work on Saturday, according to the agency.
Houston’s two main airports, William P. Hobby and George Bush Intercontinental, had the nation’s highest callout rates at over 40 percent each, according to news reports. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has been among those calling to split out immigration enforcement agencies and fund them separately via reconciliation if it would mean a quick deal to reopen TSA and the rest of DHS.
No deal without ‘SAVE’
But within hours of learning of the plan, Trump rejected it in a broadside against both parties on his Truth Social media platform, where he reverted to his push for a controversial voter identification bill that would require proof of U.S. citizenship, through a birth certificate or passport, to register to vote.
“I don’t think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass ‘THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump wrote.
Trump suggested a punt on ICE funding would amount to a $5 billion cut, which he said he could support only if it were packaged with the voter ID bill. He also has sought to expand that bill to include abolishing mail-in voting, prohibiting transgender people in women’s sports and barring transgender surgeries for children.
Targeting his own party, Trump said, “Put it all together, and also, let Leader Thune clearly identify those few ‘Republicans’ that are Voting against AMERICA. They will never be elected again!”
The voter ID bill, which consumed the attention of the Senate in a rare weekend session, stands almost no chance of becoming law. Democrats have vowed to oppose it, saying it risked disenfranchising millions of Americans who lack a birth certificate or passport and would be unable to vote.
Thune on Monday described Trump’s push to link homeland security funding to the so-called SAVE America Act as “a wrinkle,” adding that “the idea that we would have to guarantee its passage in order to get the government open, I think you all know that’s not realistic.”
He also said he was still open to trying to pass ICE funding through a GOP-backed reconciliation bill. “If we have to go that route, that would be an option, so we don’t take any options off the table,” he said.
Next steps
Trump’s rejection of Thune’s attempt at compromise means lawmakers are going back to the drawing board to find a way out of the DHS standoff.
After Democrats turned down a request for a meeting with the White House and Republicans on Saturday, the White House turned down a request from Democrats for a meeting Monday morning, according to a source familiar with the conversations. But both sides appeared to be working to schedule a meeting soon.
Thune has threatened to cancel the two-week recess slated to begin Friday if no DHS deal is reached by then. Asked if that threat still holds, he said, “Right now it’s Monday. Ask me about that on Thursday. We’ll see how it goes this week and how much progress we make, and if we can find a way to get things funded.”
The biggest obstacles to a deal so far have been Democratic demands that ICE agents remove their masks and obtain judicial warrants — as opposed to simpler administrative warrants — to enter private property.
Mullin, at his Senate confirmation hearing last week, appeared to open the door to judicial warrants, saying he thought they could be used unless agents were in hot pursuit of a suspect who is seen entering a home or business.
But Thune appeared skeptical Monday that a concession on judicial warrants would be possible.”I think there’s probably always going to be some disagreement about that, but I’m not sure how you solve that one in this negotiation,” he told reporters. “I think people have to be able to do their jobs. And the use of administrative warrants has been a practice that’s been around for a long time.”
Jacob Fulton contributed to this report.
