US Senate fails for seventh time to advance bill to partly fund DHS | US Senate
The Senate again failed to pass a bill to fund part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has been closed for almost six weeks.
The final vote came just hours after Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order directing DHS secretary Markwayne Mullin to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents during the shutdown; It’s a move that could ease the urgency for Congress to reach a deal as it heads into a planned two-week recess.
By a vote of 53 to 47, mostly along party lines, the upper chamber fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation; This was the seventh unsuccessful attempt. The only person who broke away from his party to vote in favor of the bill was Democratic senator John Fetterman. Senate majority leader John Thune introduced a motion for reconsideration that allows the bill to be reintroduced.
Lawmakers are deadlocked trying to reach a deal to fund affected parts of DHS, including the TSA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), the Coast Guard, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).
Thune called the Republicans’ latest proposal the party’s “last and final” offer, but it was ultimately rejected by Democrats, who have repeatedly called for stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement after Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by officers in Minneapolis in January during the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.
As negotiations collapsed on Thursday, Trump called for a national emergency to immediately pay the 50,000 airport security guards affected by the shutdown. On the Real SocialWhile the president said he would sign an executive order to “quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports,” he said it was “not an easy thing to do, but I’ll do it!”
Speaking to reporters, Thune said Trump’s order would relieve “immediate pressure” but acknowledged it was a “short-term solution.”
According to many reportsRepublican leadership in the Senate will draft text to fund as much of DHS as possible in the hopes that the resolution will be “hot-lined” and approved unanimously. “This is not the outcome we wanted, but unfortunately Democrats have shown that they are unwilling to support law enforcement,” Thune said in an email reported by Axios.
This week, Senate Republicans proposed a bill that would fund shuttered DHS subdivisions like the TSA, but cut money for enforcement and removal operations run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Their hope is to fund ICE, as well as money for the administration’s military action against Iran, and to pass parts of the America Rescue Act through reconciliation (a process that requires only a simple majority in the Senate).
Democrats responded with a measure that combined DHS funding with a series of new reforms to immigration enforcement operations. GOP lawmakers immediately rejected the proposal.
Previously, the House passed the GOP bill calling for a third reopening of DHS. By a vote of 218 to 206, four Democrats in the lower chamber crossed party lines to support the funding measure.
ICE has been largely insulated from the funding cuts affecting other parts of DHS since it received $75 billion through Trump’s sweeping policy bill last year.
At a House homeland security hearing Wednesday, TSA acting administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said airports across the country are experiencing historic wait times and warned that TSA workers will miss a cumulative $1 billion in paychecks this fiscal year due to repeated DHS shutdowns.
“Some are sleeping in their cars, selling their blood and plasma, and working second jobs to make ends meet,” McNeill said, adding that at least 40% of TSA personnel do not report to work because they cannot afford to do so without getting paid. At the White House, Karoline Leavitt said nearly 500 TSA officers have resigned since the shutdown began last month.
Previously, senators had also failed to propose an amendment to the president’s valuable bill that would require voters to show photo ID at the ballot box. The amendment, sponsored by Republican John Husted, failed to overcome the filibuster and received no support from Democrats. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said the amendment would “impose the strictest voter ID law in America.”
