House GOP Reversal on Reopening Department Could Pass by Thursday

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune jointly announced Wednesday they would back a plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security through the same bipartisan Senate bill House Republicans had angrily voted down just days earlier, a striking reversal that could put a funding measure on the path to passage as early as Thursday morning.

The announcement marks a sharp turnaround for both Johnson and President Trump. On March 27, the House passed its own competing 60-day continuing resolution in a largely party-line 213-203 vote, with Johnson calling the Senate's unanimous bipartisan deal "a joke" and saying he needed to "protect the House." The chamber then left town for a two-week Easter and Passover recess, leaving the DHS shutdown with no clear end in sight.

Under the two-track approach announced Wednesday, the Senate would move first, passing its earlier bipartisan measure, which funds the bulk of DHS including FEMA, the Coast Guard, and TSA, but excludes Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Those two agencies already have separate funding and would be addressed through a second, party-line budget reconciliation bill that can bypass the Senate's 60-vote filibuster threshold. The reconciliation vehicle is expected to be paired with Iran war funding and possibly the SAVE America Act, the GOP's voter ID legislation.

The DHS partial shutdown, which began in February following a deadly federal immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis in which agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens, has now stretched past 47 days. TSA workers have gone without paychecks throughout the crisis, prompting Trump to sign an executive order directing the department to pay agents directly, an emergency measure that did nothing to restore the broader agency's funding.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was quick to respond to the reversal, saying "Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement" and pointing to fractures within the GOP as the driving force behind the prolonged impasse. In their joint statement, Johnson and Thune argued that Democrats had proven unwilling to fund enforcement agencies and said the two-track structure removed that dispute from the immediate fight.

The mechanics of Thursday's potential Senate action would likely rely on unanimous consent procedures, a possibility since the Senate's bipartisan bill already passed unanimously once. If the Senate moves Thursday, the House would still need to vote to accept the same measure, clearing the final legislative hurdle before the bill could reach Trump's desk. Both chambers remain formally on recess until April 13, making any swift action dependent on members being recalled or agreements reached by party leaders acting without a full floor session.