The Senate sent the DHS funding bill back to the House after Republicans caved and agreed to it.
From The Hill:
The Senate sent a bipartisan bill to fund the bulk of the department, aside from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, to the lower chamber on Thursday by unanimous consent in an early morning pro forma session.The House met for a few minutes for its own pro forma session shortly after, but did not attempt to advance the bill, which is facing resistance from hardline conservatives.Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) was in attendance to monitor the situation, but said he likely would not have objected to a request to advance the bill. No Republican was present to object to such a move.
House Republican leaders will have a conference call this morning to hash out the details, “including assurances leaders have gotten from the White House and Senate about passing another reconciliation bill.”
The news comes days after many House Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, railed against the Senate bill.
House Republicans expressed disgust at the lack of funding for ICE and the Border Patrol.
However, most of ICE and the Border Patrol have received funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill.
The funding did not include civilian support at ICE and the Border Patrol.
Bill Melugin tweeted this morning that President Donald Trump plans to use executive action to pay those people:
According to a memo that OMB sent to Congress, it appears the White House plans to take “additional executive action” to pay civilian support employees at ICE & CBP via the OBBB since they aren’t being paid now and won’t be paid through appropriations because the Senate DHS bill Republicans are agreeing to provides no funding for ICE & CBP.It appears the WH intends to get those support employees paid via OBBB so they don’t want to wait until June for a reconciliation bill.They haven’t been paid since mid February.
The highlighted portion in the image says:
All support staff, such as paralegals, processing coordinators, enforcement assistants, and criminal investigators assistants, among others, can be paid using funds from the WFTCA through additional executive action.
The shutdown has mainly affected the TSA, FEMA, and Coast Guard.
The original DHS funding bill would have funded the HSI (Homeland Security Investigations), which handles trafficking.
But the chambers need to send an immigration enforcement plan to President Donald Trump by June 1:
The Senate is expected to move first to approve a budget resolution that will unlock the GOP-only immigration bill, according to three people granted anonymity to disclose private strategy, and could adopt the fiscal blueprint for the final bill by the end of the month.Thune said Thursday he has already had conversations with Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) about how to move as quickly as possible.“Our theory of the case behind all this was to keep that thing as narrow and focused as possible, and that maximizes, I think, the speed at which we can do it and the support for it,” he said.
Both chambers are on recess until April 13.
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