Once the Senate took its vote early Thursday, it moved to the next step in a bid to restart the Department of Homeland Security after the department was shut down in mid-February. The measure—designed to keep focus on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol—was sent to the House after Republicans adopted a budget resolution through a process that allows the chamber to act without the 60-vote threshold that typically applies to Senate bills.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Republicans faced a “multistep process” but argued that at the end Republicans would have ensured that “America’s borders are secure and prevented Democrats from defunding these important agencies.” Senate Majority Leader Thune and other Republicans framed the action as the first opening in a larger sequence that would need additional House steps and Senate procedures before full funding could move forward.
Summary of the vote and process
The Senate’s path Thursday depended on reconciliation rules and a series of amendment votes that stretched through the night, starting Wednesday evening and running into early Thursday morning. Republicans held the vote series despite Democrats proposing amendments, including proposals intended to lower health care expenses and other costs and to contrast with Republicans’ focus on immigration enforcement.
The Senate adopted the final resolution 50-48 at about 3:30 a.m., after the earlier votes and debate. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., criticized the budget focus, saying, “Instead of pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into ICE and Border Patrol, Republicans should be working with Democrats to lower out-of-pocket costs.”
Republicans said the underlying budget approach was intended to bypass filibuster rules because the Senate only needed a simple majority for the resolution. At the same time, the reconciliation route brought its own constraints, including increased scrutiny from the Senate parliamentarian and a long chain of amendment voting at both the beginning and end of the process.
Why ICE and Border Patrol are at the center
The shutdown of Homeland Security has been tied to Democrats’ demands for changes in immigration enforcement tactics in the wake of fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents. The AP account tied the dispute to the shooting of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January, and said that later efforts did not produce an agreement on changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
Democrats said a new funding bill should place restraints on federal immigration authorities. Their list of requested changes included better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks. After federal agents shot Good and Pretti, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that Homeland Security be separated from a larger spending measure that later became law, but bipartisan negotiations did not reach the targeted policy changes, the AP report said.
The Senate had already voted in March on legislation by voice vote to separate out ICE and Border Patrol and fund the rest of the department, but Republicans in the House did not move to consider it. House Republicans refused, saying they would not support a bill that did not include money for immigration enforcement.
House roadblocks after the Senate vote
Republican and Democratic negotiators also have confronted competing views inside House leadership and the House GOP conference about how to proceed. During a two-week congressional recess, Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson said they would pursue a two-track approach: pass the Senate bill funding most of Homeland Security through regular order, while also advancing a party-line bill to pass ICE and CBP funding. Johnson, however, had not said when the House would take up the Senate’s broader legislation that would fund the rest of the department.
The AP report also noted that some House Republicans have urged adding other priorities to the narrowed budget effort, and Senate John Kennedy, R-La., briefly held up the vote series late Wednesday. Kennedy said, “This is the last train leaving the station,” predicting that Congress would not pass other major bills ahead of November’s midterm elections; he later withdrew his objections so voting could proceed.
Thune warned after the Senate vote that other parts of the Homeland Security Department may run out of money before lawmakers finish the winding budget process to fund ICE and Border Patrol. He said he hoped the adoption of the budget resolution would be a signal to the House that Republicans would “be following through.” Thune added, “We’ll see what they can do with it,” and, “And if they can’t, I guess we will go to the next plan.”
Demands for restraints collide with Republicans’ narrow focus
While Republicans sought to keep the measure narrowly focused on ICE and Border Patrol, Democrats continued to argue for changes that would restrain immigration enforcement authorities. The standoff has left the department shut down since mid-February, the AP report said, and lawmakers’ negotiations have included repeated procedural steps and sequencing debates rather than a straightforward agreement.
The AP report said the budget resolution would fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years, through the rest of Trump’s term. It also said GOP leaders hoped to get the resolution to Trump’s desk in the coming weeks, along with remaining Homeland Security funding that already passed the Senate, but that difficulty could persist if the House sought broader additions to the package.
As lawmakers work through reconciliation mechanics and House scheduling decisions, the next move in the sequence rests with House action and with final procedural approvals, including Senate parliamentarian considerations that shape the reconciliation timeline. MSI previously reported on the Senate’s earlier steps to restart the bid to fund DHS and end a partial shutdown—now followed by a narrower plan aimed at ICE and Border Patrol funding.