{"id":20628,"date":"2026-03-27T12:02:03","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T12:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-dhs-shutdown-now-in-houses-hands\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T12:02:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T12:02:03","slug":"capitol-agenda-dhs-shutdown-now-in-houses-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-dhs-shutdown-now-in-houses-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: DHS shutdown now in House\u2019s hands"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Congress could finally be on track to end the nearly six-week DHS shutdown.<\/p>\n

The Senate called an end to weeks of tortured negotiations and voice-voted a bill<\/a> funding all of DHS except ICE and parts of CBP around 2:30 Friday morning \u2014 essentially delivering exactly what Democrats had asked for in recent days.<\/p>\n

But Republicans are promising to come back and fund immigration enforcement with a vengeance in an upcoming reconciliation bill \u2014 not just for fiscal 2027, but for many years to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s coming next will supercharge deportations,\u201d Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said early Friday morning. \u201cThe filibuster cannot save you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took a victory lap, saying Democrats \u201cheld firm in our opposition\u201d that there should be no \u201cblank check\u201d for ICE and CBP.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

But many House Republicans will not be happy about the prospect of voting on a DHS bill that does not include enforcement funding \u2014 especially after Trump moved unilaterally Thursday to start paying TSA agents<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The usual path for a broadly bipartisan bill \u2014 passing it under suspension of the rules with a two-thirds majority \u2014 is tricky. Suspension motions aren\u2019t allowed on Fridays under the standing rules, and changing that would require unanimous consent.<\/p>\n

The other path is Speaker Mike Johnson convincing his conference to unite behind a rule and put the bill directly on the floor.<\/p>\n

He has a case to make to skeptical hard-liners: Democrats didn\u2019t 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\u2019s megabill.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 much as the promise of big tax cuts made the megabill work.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> to the embattled department.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t exactly walk into the Pacific Ocean on a calm day,\u201d said Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nevada). <\/p>\n

Jordain Carney, Jennifer Scholtes and Eric Bazail-Emil contributed to this report. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2014 essentially delivering exactly what Democrats had asked for in recent days. But Republicans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}