Bipartisan Pushback Derails Latest Deal to Fund DHS Amid Shutdown

Senate Republicans sent Democrats a formal offer Tuesday after what appeared to be a breakthrough in talks late Monday, when a group of senators met with President Trump at the White House and returned to the Capitol optimistic. By Tuesday afternoon, optimism had collapsed.

Momentum toward reopening DHS evaporated Tuesday as Democrats drew a hard line on reforms to ICE, swiftly rejecting a proposal that GOP senators had only just persuaded President Trump to entertain. GOP senators had persuaded Trump to back off his demands that the SAVE America Act be included in a DHS funding package, arguing that a narrower deal could pass the Senate. But Democrats immediately shot down the latest proposal, and some Republicans framed it as a capitulation to Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, told reporters that the GOP offer would fund 94% of the DHS budget while withholding $5.5 billion for ICE's deportation arm, known as Enforcement and Removal Operations. "The time to end this is now," Thune said. "It is essentially what the Democrats have been asking for."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made clear that Democrats aren't budging without reforms to ICE, and that they plan to send a counterproposal. "We have to rein in ICE and stop the violence," Schumer said at a news conference at the Capitol. "We need reform." Democratic lawmakers are asking the Trump administration to impose a mask ban, judicial warrant reform, and a universal code of conduct for federal agents at ICE and CBP.

Doubts about the proposal came from all sides: conservative Republicans were uneasy with carving out ICE funding, and unconvinced that promises of future action through reconciliation will materialize. House Speaker Mike Johnson said a DHS funding bill that does not include funding for ICE would not be his preference. Trump offered a pessimistic assessment of the plan Tuesday afternoon, saying "any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy," just as top Democrats were insisting they would need more to support the plan as well.

The Department of Homeland Security has been shut down for more than five weeks, and the resistance from Democrats, paired with skepticism among some Republicans including Trump, casts serious doubt on whether Congress can strike a deal this week. The shutdown began on February 14, 2026. It stems from Democrats in Congress demanding changes to how federal immigration enforcement operates after two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by officers in Minneapolis.

The human cost is accumulating at airport security checkpoints across the country. At least 458 TSA officers have quit altogether, according to DHS. Nearly 11% of workers called out on Monday, when airports across the nation saw hours-long security wait times and lines stretching into parking lots. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston saw some of the most significant disruptions, with wait times for general screenings averaging about four hours as of midday Tuesday. The latest proposal to reopen the agency came amid swelling TSA lines, as agents faced a second missed paycheck this week. The Trump administration deployed ICE agents to some U.S. airports in what it described as a bid to assist TSA agents.

Some 2.8 million people were projected to travel on U.S. airlines each day in March and April, adding up to a record 171 million passengers, according to the industry group Airlines for America. With Easter and school spring break approaching, the pressure on both chambers to resolve the impasse is intensifying, even as Tuesday's collapse of talks pushed any deal further out of reach.