Partial shutdown drags on as US House takes no action on compromise deal

The US House of Representatives on Thursday took no action on a compromise measure that would end the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), raising questions about how much longer the record-long funding lapse will persist.

The department has been without funding since mid-February, after Democrats refused to vote for its appropriations unless Republicans agreed to new guardrails on federal agents involved in immigration enforcement operations.

Talks between the two sides appeared deadlocked until last week, when the parties announced a deal that saw the Senate pass a measure funding most of the DHS, with the exception of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as well as elements of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), two agencies that play a lead role in Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

The agreement was derailed when House Republicans rejected the Senate bill, and instead passed their own legislation funding all of the DHS for 60 days. Senate Democrats quickly vowed to block its passage with the filibuster.

House Republicans appeared to cave on Wednesday, when John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader, and his counterpart in the lower chamber, the speaker, Mike Johnson, agreed to drop the House’s bill and advance the Senate measure.

Both chambers are on recess through next week, but on Thursday morning Thune appeared at a brief ceremonial session and formally rejected the House measure, then sent the Senate’s version back to the lower chamber. The leader’s motions were unanimous, since no lawmakers from either party appeared in the chamber to object to them.

But when the House convened for its own pro forma session lasting just shy of three minutes later that morning, it did not take up the Senate-passed bill, and it remains unclear when the Republican majority will do so.

“House Republicans own the longest government shutdown in history,” the Senate’s Democratic minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said in a statement after the House convened.

“The deep division and dysfunction among House Republicans is needlessly extending the DHS shutdown and hurting federal workers who are missing another paycheck.”

Under Johnson and Thune’s plan, which Trump endorsed, Republicans will work with Democrats to pass the Senate’s bill, then begin writing another measure funding ICE and CBP unilaterally using the budget reconciliation process, which can circumvent the filibuster.

But Johnson appears to be navigating objections within his own party, after signs emerged that rightwing lawmakers disagreed with the prospect of passing any legislation that does not include money for all of the DHS.

“Funding for ICE and CBP must never be separated from DHS funding,” Keith Self, a member of House Freedom caucus, wrote on X on Wednesday.

“If Republicans isolate it, they’re handing our border and ICE agents straight to the radicals who will defund and dismantle them every chance they get.”

The partial shutdown of the DHS has become the longest such funding lapse in history, and at one point caused security lines at some major airports to stretch for hours after Transportation Security Administration agents went weeks without pay. Trump last week signed an order for them to receive paychecks, and lines have shortened in the days since.

The forthcoming reconciliation bill is expected to be a major and potentially divisive undertaking for Republicans ahead of the November midterm elections, where they will defend their majorities in the House and Senate.

Lindsey Graham, who chairs the Senate budget committee that will take a major role in writing it, signaled the legislation may also include funding for the conflict with Iran, as well as elements of the Save America Act, which would impose new identification requirements on voters.

Trump said he wants the measure on his desk by 1 June.