Senate Republicans are growing increasingly frustrated with Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) decision not to put a Senate-passed bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the House floor for a vote as they fear the White House could soon run out of money to pay federal workers affected by a partial government shutdown.
GOP senators are careful not to publicly criticize Johnson and House conservatives who are holding up the Senate-passed homeland security funding bill so as not to further chill the situation.
But they warn that the White House will soon run out of flexibility to continue paying Homeland Security workers — including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Coast Guard and other critical agencies — if Congress doesn’t act soon.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she wants to act quickly on a package the Senate unanimously passed before Easter that would give more funding to DHS but not Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the Border Patrol.
“I think it makes more sense to try to move things quickly,” she said.
Murkowski acknowledged that there is growing frustration among GOP senators over the failure to vote on the Senate-passed package, which senators had hoped would provide a quick resolution to the two-month-long impasse over homeland security funding.
“I think we saw this as the simplest, quickest, most targeted way to end a partial government shutdown,” she said.
A Republican senator who requested anonymity said GOP senators blame most Democrats for repeatedly blocking a homeland security appropriations bill that includes funding for ICE.
But the senator said Johnson’s refusal to move quickly on a Senate-passed deal is making a bad situation worse.
The senator said Johnson backed away from a deal that GOP senators thought the speaker had agreed to with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R.S.D.) before the Easter recess to get a Senate-passed funding bill.
“We have agreements at the top level with our leadership in many ways – or at least conceptual agreements – I don’t know why we can’t stand by them. That’s disappointing,” the senator said.
Senate Republicans agreed in late March to strike a deal with Democrats to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security and then pass more funding for ICE and the Border Patrol through the budget reconciliation process to get around a Democratic filibuster.
A Senate GOP aide said Republican senators were told Johnson and President Trump would support a Senate bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security before giving their consent to move forward last month.
Democrats have refused to fund ICE and the Border Patrol unless Republicans agree on major immigration enforcement reforms, such as requiring federal officers to obtain judicial warrants before entering private homes and banning officers from wearing masks.
Johnson, however, told reporters Wednesday that Republican senators would not advance a Senate bill to partially fund the Department of Homeland Security until first passing a budget reconciliation bill to fund ICE and the Border Patrol for the next 3 1/2 years.
House conservatives have expressed their dismay at agreeing with Senate Republicans to split homeland security funding from funding for other departments, arguing that the decision gave Democrats more leverage in impeding ICE.
“I think the Senate keeps making mistakes, and I think we live with those mistakes every day,” Rep. said Chip Roy (R-Texas), a leading member of the House Freedom Caucus.
“We shouldn’t have desegregated DHS. Now here we are with desegregating ICE and the Border Patrol,” he said of GOP senators’ decision to pass a bill that would defund most of the Department of Homeland Security but fund key immigration enforcement agencies.
“But if the Senate is going to go ahead, and they’re going to drive through this, because they just think they can assume we’re going to vote for everything, I think that’s a mistake,” he added.
Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.) said House conservatives don’t feel comfortable passing a partial homeland security funding bill while funding for ICE and the Border Patrol remains uncertain for Trump’s second term.
“If we can get a thin reconciliation bill up first, we’ll be more comfortable with the funding bill passed by the Senate. … But until then, it makes more sense to do overall reconciliation and deal with it in one bill,” he said.
A “skinny” reconciliation bill envisioned by Senate Republican leaders would fund ICE and the Border Patrol for three and a half years and cost between $65 billion and $70 billion.
GOP senators don’t want to publicly hit Johnson, who is under heavy pressure from the conservative House Freedom Caucus not to call the Senate bill for a vote until the Senate first passes a budget reconciliation funding ICE and CBP.
“I don’t try to tell the House what to do or how to do it,” Thune told reporters Monday. “Obviously, the sooner we can fund all those agencies, the better.”
But it could take another month to move the bill under special budget reconciliation protections to avoid a Democratic filibuster.
White House Budget Director Russell Vought warned senators on Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security is “disintegrating” because of Congressional funding failures since February 14.
Vote told senators at a budget committee hearing that he and Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin are trying to prevent federal workers from leaving en masse.
“There is no money for the entire Department of Homeland Security,” Vote testified.
“Right now, the Department of Homeland Security is being dismantled because the secretary and I have to figure out ways to temporarily fund people’s paychecks so we don’t have people leaving and starting new careers,” Vote said.
The budget chief warned that staffing levels could collapse if Congress doesn’t quickly find a way to end the two-month Homeland Security shutdown.
“Some of the things that we were seeing as Secretary Mullin took office over the weekend were incredibly related to, we have to have a funding mechanism for the entire Department of Homeland Security,” Vote warned.
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, echoed Vote’s view that Congress should move as quickly as possible to address the growing crisis at the Department of Homeland Security.
“Time is of the essence,” she said when asked about Voth’s testimony. “I’m certainly not a fan of where we are in the process but we are where we are and we have to find a way forward.”
Donated by Emily Brooks.
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