WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats blocked a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security for the fourth time in the past month, as Transportation Security Administration agents are expected to miss their first paychecks this week.
Forty-six Democrats voted Thursday against a stopgap funding bill for the beleaguered department that has been partially shut down since Feb. 14, demanding instead that individual subagencies — with the exclusion of those handling immigration enforcement — get separate spending votes.
Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only Democrat to join 50 Republicans in voting to fund DHS.
But that kept the bill from clearing the 60-vote threshold needed to pass it, prolonging the 27-day freeze on funding for TSA workers and other DHS employees.
The vote came as more than 5,000 flights were delayed and 500 were canceled within, into or out of the US, according to a flight tracking site.
Major US airports in Denver and Seattle have also started asking for donations to support the federal employees tasked with keeping air travel safe.
“Support the dedicated TSA employees working without pay by donating $10 and $20 grocery store and gas gift cards,” Denver International Airport tweeted from its official X account.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport posted on X that it had “opened a food pantry to support them,” filled with “non-perishable food, hygiene items, and diapers.”
The last full spending bill passed in mid-January, and 300 workers have quit since then.
“Fifty-eight days after passing the first continuing resolution [Senate Democrats] have yet to actually sit down in a room with Republicans and the White House to talk and have a conversation about what is a pathway forward,” said Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) Wednesday, one of several negotiators on the funding package.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democratic appropriator in the upper chamber, has said that their party is still seeking “clear understanding” from the White House about proposed reforms for DHS.
Senate Democrats have been pushing for provisions to ban federal immigration agents and officer from wearing masks while conducting enforcement actions, to require them to display identification and to wear body cameras.
They’ve also suggested agents should have to obtain judicial warrants to enter private property in pursuit of suspects.
ICE and CBP still have extra funding left over from Republicans’ massive tax-and-spending bill passed last July, meaning the Democratic opposition hasn’t directly impeded immigration enforcement yet.
Negotiations have also faltered between the parties even as 95% of TSA officers continue to clock in to work security checkpoints for airline passengers every day. Nearly 43% of their work during the 2026 fiscal year has been on furlough.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a floor speech that Republicans had twice rejected offers to separately fund just the TSA, the Cybsersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“Democrats just want ICE to behave like any police department in America and use warrants and not wear masks,” Schumer noted, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as “marauding forces.”
“We know the American people are on our side. We know that the only thing Republicans need to do is stay out of the way and these programs will be funded today and problems at the airports will go away.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) countered in a debate with Schumer on the floor: “The Democrats have had multiple opportunities and will have another one today to provide funding for all of the agencies that he just mentioned.”
“There has been offers made repeatedly, the most recent of which was about 13 days ago from the White House, and the Democrats have yet to respond to it,” Thune said.
Congressional Democrats have voted against prior DHS funding bills in protest of the fatal shootings by DHS officers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti two months ago in Minnesota.
An ICE agent shot Good as she was accelerating her vehicle in his direction, while Pretti, who was armed with a handgun, was shot by two Customs and Border Protection officers during a “struggle” on the streets of Minneapolis.
Republicans have backed federal investigations of the deadly shootings, with some calling in January for the ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
President Trump announced last week that Noem would be stepping down from her role at DHS at the end of March following her apparently misleading testimony on Capitol Hill regarding an almost quarter-billion-dollar ad campaign about mass deportations.
