Senators approved a compromise measure early Friday to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security through the end of September, taking a major step toward ending the 42-day partial shutdown that has seen hundreds of airport security workers quit after missing paychecks and snarled travel nationwide.
The agreement, passed by voice vote before senators departed Washington for a two-week recess for Easter and Passover, will be considered by the House later Friday morning.
The last-ditch deal does not include any of the demands Democrats have placed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — including that agents be barred from wearing masks and operate under tougher warrant requirements to detain illegal migrants.
The bill does not provide funding for ICE or Border Patrol, but those subagencies already received billions of dollars under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law by Trump this past July and immigration enforcement has gone on uninterrupted by the shutdown.
Nevertheless, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) proclaimed that Democrats had “held the line.”
“In the wake of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Democrats were clear: No blank check for a lawless ICE and Border Patrol,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said the bill was “not the way to fund the department. But, we were out of time.”
“The Dems wanted reforms,” Thune said, according to Politico. “We tried to work with them on reforms. They ended up getting no reforms but, you know, we’re going to have to fight some of those battles another day.”
“We can get at least a lot of the government opened up again and then we’ll go from there,” he added.
The deal cleared the Senate hours after President Trump vowed he would sign an emergency order paying Transportation Security Administration agents in danger of missing a second full paycheck Friday.
That announcement came after most Senate Democrats voted for the seventh time to block considering of a bill to fund DHS.
“Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true National Crisis, I am using my authorities under the Law to protect our Great Country, as I always will do!” Trump wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post.
“I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports. It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it!,” he wrote.
Trump had predicted during a Thursday morning cabinet meeting he would have to take “drastic measures” if the stalemate on Capitol Hill didn’t end. He previously floated sending the National Guard to airports to supplement ICE agents.
The president’s order would pay TSA agents using money from his 2025 tax bill, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly.
If the Senate package is approved by the House and signed into law, the action Trump announced may be temporary or unneeded.
Almost 500 airport screeners have quit since the partial shutdown began Feb. 14, and call-out rates have surged to double-digits, well above the roughly 2% rate before the funding lapse, the agency’s acting administrator, Ha Nguyen McNeill, told lawmakers Wednesday.
Those staffing pressures have caused some wait times at airports to exceed 4.5 hours, the longest in the TSA’s 25-year history.
ICE agents have been deployed to airports across the US – and have been checking travelers’ IDs and managing crowds in a bid to ease the congestion, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston has seen some of the worst delays, with passengers being warned Thursday that they could face wait times of four hours or more.
Passneger Melissa Gates said she would not make her flight to Baton Rouge, La., after waiting more than 2.5 hours and still not reaching the security checkpoint. She said no other flights were available until Friday.
“I should have just driven, right?” Gates said. “Five hours would have been hilarious next to this.”
With Post wires
