NEED TO KNOW

• Senate funded all DHS except ICE; House demands ICE be included
• Both chambers left town for recess after passing rival bills
• 44-day shutdown now longest in modern history, 500+ TSA workers quit

WASHINGTON (TDR) — Congress left Washington on Friday without funding the Department of Homeland Security, passing competing bills that leave the 44-day shutdown unresolved and both chambers pointing fingers across the Capitol.

The big picture: The standoff reveals a GOP split between Senate pragmatists seeking a limited fix and House conservatives demanding full immigration enforcement funding—a tactical divide that leaves 240,000 DHS employees in limbo while both sides claim the other is using workers as political pawns.

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• Senate Republicans accepted a deal excluding ICE and Border Patrol funding to end airport chaos, passing it via voice vote at 2:08 a.m. Friday
• Speaker Mike Johnson rejected the Senate bill hours later, calling it "a joke," and passed a 60-day stopgap funding all DHS agencies through May 22
• President Trump ordered TSA pay restored via executive action, but more than 510 officers have already quit during the shutdown

Why it matters: The shutdown affects more than airport lines—Coast Guard personnel, FEMA disaster responders, and cybersecurity teams remain unpaid or furloughed amid what officials call heightened threat levels, while TSA workers missed their second full paycheck Friday.

• TSA absences reached 40% at some airports, with acting administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill warning Congress about "security posture" degradation
• Coast Guard personnel remain without pay despite ongoing national security operations and maritime law enforcement
• CISA operations curtailed during what intelligence officials describe as a heightened digital threat environment

Driving the news: The sequence moved fast and ended with both chambers in recess: Senate Republicans cut a late-night deal Democrats could accept, then House Republicans blew it up and left town, leaving the shutdown to drag on for at least two more weeks.

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• The Senate unanimously passed bipartisan legislation funding TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard while excluding immigration enforcement agencies
• Johnson announced the House would not accept any deal that excludes ICE, stating "we're not going to risk not funding the agencies that keep the American people safe"
• The House passed its competing 60-day stopgap 213-203—with three Democrats crossing party lines—then adjourned immediately for a two-week recess

What they're saying: The rhetoric hardened as both sides accused the other of using federal workers as leverage—each claiming moral high ground while engineering a stalemate that guarantees continued hardship for DHS employees.

• Speaker Mike Johnson — "This gambit that was done last night is a joke. ... The Democrats would force some sort of negotiation at 3 o'clock in the morning and try to hoist this among the American people, and then get on their jets and go home for their holiday."
• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — "We've been clear from day one: Democrats will fund critical homeland security functions — but we will not give a blank check to Trump's lawless and deadly immigration militia without reforms."
• Senate Majority Leader John Thune — "We could be standing here right now passing a funding bill with a list of reforms if Democrats had made the smallest effort to actually reach an agreement, but they didn't."
• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — "This could end, and should end, today. ... House Democrats are prepared to support the bipartisan bill. Unfortunately, MAGA extremists continue to inflict pain on the American people."

Yes, but: The House GOP position ignores that ICE and CBP remain operational using $75 billion from last year's reconciliation bill—making the funding dispute largely symbolic while the political battle rages and workers pay the price.

• ICE continued enforcement operations throughout the shutdown using previously appropriated funds from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, rendering the funding fight cosmetic rather than operational
• Trump's unilateral executive order to pay TSA workers removed the immediate airport pressure that was driving negotiations toward compromise
• Three House Democrats (Henry Cuellar, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, and Don Davis) voted for the GOP stopgap, undermining the unified Democratic opposition

Between the lines: Both chambers strategically engineered a stalemate they could blame on the other side—passing bills designed to fail in the opposite chamber, then leaving town to avoid further negotiation while claiming the moral high ground of having "passed a solution."

• The Senate passed its bill at 2 a.m. and immediately recessed for two weeks, preventing House input on final language and forcing a binary accept-or-reject choice
• The House used a "deem and pass" procedural maneuver to avoid a direct floor vote on their own stopgap measure, then left town before the Senate could respond
• Both sides now point to the other's intransigence while having structured the legislative calendar to make genuine negotiation impossible until mid-April

What's next:

• The Senate remains in recess until April 13 with no plans to return early, according to Majority Leader John Thune
• House GOP leaders suggested the Senate could pass their bill by unanimous consent during Monday's pro forma session, a process Schumer has already declared "dead on arrival"
• The earliest viable legislative window opens April 13 when both chambers return, extending the shutdown to at least 60 days total
• Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick and Rep. Tom Suozzi floated a bipartisan alternative with ICE reforms, but Johnson has not agreed to bring it to the floor

When both chambers engineer bills designed to fail in the other house and then leave town, who exactly is using federal workers as political leverage—and does the distinction matter if the paychecks remain frozen either way?

Sources

This report was compiled using information from NPR, CBS News, NBC News, Politico, and PBS NewsHour

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