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Mike Johnson coy on next steps for DHS funding: ‘Stay tuned’

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Speaker Mike Johnson declined to say Friday whether he will keep the House in over the weekend to pass the Department of Homeland Security funding agreement the Senate approved hours earlier.

“Stay tuned,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters when asked if he was committed to passing the Senate bill, which would fund all of DHS except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

Johnson said he would talk through options and work the “will of the conference.” But every path before him is fraught.

Johnson, who said he has not decided on how to advance the bill, has several options.

He could move it through a party-line “rule” vote that would require broad GOP support — an unsure bet at this stage as GOP leaders expect a backlash from ultra-conservatives. His alternative would be to expedite passage through a so-called suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority vote — a move that could enrage GOP hard-liners.

Johnson is also hamstrung by the fact that procedural rules that House members approved at the start of the 119th Congress does not allow the House to vote on suspension bills on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

House Rules Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the House GOP’s campaign fundraising arm, met with the speaker Friday and other senior Republicans to plot a path forward.

Conservative House Republicans are livid that the Senate passed the funding deal absent ICE funding and then left town, also without passing the elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act. GOP hard-liners are pushing for Johnson to attach SAVE and send it back to the Senate.

“We want to solve these problems as quickly as possible, but we also understand this dangerous gambit about not funding the border, securing the border and the ability to deport criminal illegal aliens is a serious problem,” Johnson said.

Centrist House Republicans are itching for the chamber to pass the deal Friday.

“I hope they do,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said.

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Congress

Florida Democrat found guilty of House Ethics violations

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Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick illicitly funneled millions of dollars to her campaign and committed various campaign finance infractions, a bipartisan House Ethics subcommittee determined Friday — likely laying the groundwork for a vote by the full legislative body to expel the embattled Florida Democrat.

The panel’s adjudicatory subcommittee, led by House Ethics Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.), deliberated for well past midnight following an hours-long hearing that served as the panel’s first public “trial” in nearly 16 years. It found “clear and convincing” evidence that Cherfilus-McCormick was guilty of all but two of the 27 counts that had been brought against her.

Also facing related federal criminal charges in her home state, the three-term lawmaker is poised to come before the Ethics Committee again soon, when members of the committee will convene to consider what penalty to recommend to the full House.

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Capitol agenda: DHS shutdown now in House’s hands

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Congress could finally be on track to end the nearly six-week DHS shutdown.

The Senate called an end to weeks of tortured negotiations and voice-voted a bill funding all of DHS except ICE and parts of CBP around 2:30 Friday morning — essentially delivering exactly what Democrats had asked for in recent days.

But Republicans are promising to come back and fund immigration enforcement with a vengeance in an upcoming reconciliation bill — not just for fiscal 2027, but for many years to come.

“What’s coming next will supercharge deportations,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said early Friday morning. “The filibuster cannot save you.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took a victory lap, saying Democrats “held firm in our opposition” that there should be no “blank check” for ICE and CBP.

It’s not a done deal yet, however. The Senate-passed agreement faces a treacherous path in the House, which could act on the bill and send it to President Donald Trump Friday.

But many House Republicans will not be happy about the prospect of voting on a DHS bill that does not include enforcement funding — especially after Trump moved unilaterally Thursday to start paying TSA agents.

House GOP leaders went to bed Thursday night not knowing what the Senate would do, waiting to see what they might pass before formulating a plan.

The usual path for a broadly bipartisan bill — passing it under suspension of the rules with a two-thirds majority — is tricky. Suspension motions aren’t allowed on Fridays under the standing rules, and changing that would require unanimous consent.

The other path is Speaker Mike Johnson convincing his conference to unite behind a rule and put the bill directly on the floor.

He has a case to make to skeptical hard-liners: Democrats didn’t get most of the additional constraints they wanted on the two unfunded immigration agencies. And ICE and CBP can operate indefinitely on what remains of the nearly $140 billion windfall they received under last year’s megabill.

The notion of piling on even more enforcement and deportation money could also give Republicans a powerful goal to rally around as they cook up a new reconciliation bill — much as the promise of big tax cuts made the megabill work.

They can also rest assured that DHS is now in the hands of one of their own: former House and Senate member Markwayne Mullin, who is under fierce pressure to bring a steady hand to the embattled department.

“He didn’t exactly walk into the Pacific Ocean on a calm day,” said Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nevada).

Jordain Carney, Jennifer Scholtes and Eric Bazail-Emil contributed to this report.

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Senate agrees to end shutdown for most of DHS

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After two months of unyielding negotiations, both parties gave up early Friday on reaching a grand accord to reform and fund the Department of Homeland Security.

Instead, Senate Republicans accepted what Democrats have been offering for weeks — cash for all of DHS except for ICE and part of Customs and Border Protection.

The Senate approved the funding package by a voice vote and is now expected to begin a scheduled two-week recess. The House could vote as soon as Friday, before the shutdown would break the record Saturday night for the longest funding lapse of any federal agency in U.S. history.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune called the outcome “unfortunate” Friday.

“The Dems wanted reforms. 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,” he said.

Thune said the House was “aware” of the Senate’s plan but did not know what the other chamber would do. He also said he spoke with President Donald Trump Thursday.

The Senate’s surrender followed Trump’s announcement Thursday night that DHS will start paying TSA agents, who have worked without compensation since the shutdown began almost six weeks ago. Before that move, lawmakers and their staff worried that a nationwide walkout of TSA agents could take place as soon as Friday, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions.

Democratic senators said minutes after Trump’s announcement that there were still bipartisan talks ongoing. But Republicans, increasingly skeptical that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer would ever cut a deal, signaled that they viewed the negotiations as effectively over.

“Time is up,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said.

For Democrats, the solution to the DHS shutdown means no additional constraints on the two agencies left not fully funded since federal agents fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota in January. Democrats refused to approve new spending for those agencies absent major policy changes, including banning DHS agents from wearing masks and requiring judicial warrants for immigration raids.

“Senate Democrats were clear: no blank check for a lawless ICE and Border Patrol,” Schumer said Friday. “Democrats held firm in our opposition that Donald Trump’s rogue and deadly militia should not get more funding without serious reforms.”

The Senate-approved package includes some of the provisions agreed to as part of the January funding negotiations, including $20 million for body cameras for immigration enforcement agents.

Over the last week, Republicans have been talking about pumping more funding to immigration operations without Democratic votes, by harnessing the party-line reconciliation process they used to enact their “big, beautiful” tax-cuts-focused bill last summer. Republicans pitched the strategy after Trump argued they should not take any deal unless it’s linked to the SAVE America Act, an elections bill that doesn’t have a path to passing the Senate.

Doing another party-line bill is facing early doubts from House and Senate Republicans, who are skeptical they will be able to marshal their narrow margins just months before the midterms.

In the meantime, and even if the reconciliation effort falls short, ICE and CBP can operate on what remains of the nearly $140 billion windfall they received under last year’s megabill — far more than the total of $28 billion the two agencies were previously set to receive for the current fiscal year.

Asked about pursuing another reconciliation bill for the immigration enforcement money, Thune said Friday that it is a “good possibility.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) warned Democrats on Friday to “be careful what you wish for” and that “the filibuster cannot save you” from what Republicans plan to enact through reconciliation.

“What’s coming next will supercharge deportations,” Schmitt added.

The unexpected resolution came as senators grew increasingly eager to end the shutdown with both congressional chambers scheduled to leave town Friday for a two-week recess.

Senate Republicans said Thursday they had made what they called their “final” offer to Democrats — funding all of DHS except ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations but with additional language meant to assuage Democrats’ concerns. But optimism for an agreement quickly ran aground in the morass of legislative negotiating.

Schumer didn’t mention the spending discussions during his daily speech from the floor Thursday. And Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) said they weren’t presented with the latest GOP offer during Democrats’ closed-door lunch.

Hours later, Trump announced his unilateral move to pay TSA workers, short-circuiting any further talks.

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