Senate tees up bill to end Homeland Security shutdown

Savannah Behrmann, CQ-Roll Call on Apr 2, 2026

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WASHINGTON — The Senate took the first step Thursday in a GOP-backed plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, sending the House for a second time its bill to fund the department except for immigration enforcement.

In an early-morning pro forma session, the Senate agreed, by voice vote, to table a House measure that would have extended funding for the entire department for eight weeks. The move effectively restored the bill back to its original Senate-passed version, giving the House another chance to act on it.

The move came after President Donald Trump threw his support behind the Senate proposal, which includes a plan to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection separately through a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill in coming weeks. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who had called the Senate bill a “joke” last week because it lacked immigration enforcement funding, rallied behind it Wednesday after Trump’s intervention.

Trump set a June 1 deadline for Congress to pass a reconciliation bill funding the immigration agencies, a tight timeline for a cumbersome process that dragged on for roughly five months last year, when Republicans passed their “big, beautiful bill.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday the new commitment from Trump and Johnson to back the Senate plan came after leaders had time “to figure out what’s in the realm of the possible,” given staunch Democratic opposition to funding the immigration agencies without new guardrails on federal agents.

But the House stopped short of trying to pass the measure by unanimous consent at its own pro forma session Thursday morning. Johnson was likely going to need to call the House back from its Easter recess at some point to clear the bill for Trump’s signature through a roll call vote.

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a former chairman of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, declared his opposition to the plan on X, formerly Twitter. He said Wednesday that “caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again.”

The partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, now 48 days old, has become the longest in history, with tens of thousands of workers going unpaid until the shutdown ends. Trump issued a directive to pay Transportation Security Administration workers on an emergency basis.