Proposed Deal Would Fund DHS But Exclude ICE Deportation Operations

TSA officers are entering their sixth week without paychecks while airport security lines snake for hours through terminals across the country. That mounting pressure drove a group of Senate Republicans to the White House on Monday night, and they emerged believing they had finally found an exit from the 38-day Department of Homeland Security shutdown: fund 94 percent of DHS now, leave ICE's deportation arm for later.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the offer is to fund 94 percent of the DHS budget while withholding $5.5 billion for ICE's deportation arm, known as Enforcement and Removal Operations. The emerging agreement would fund many of the agencies DHS oversees, including TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard. Senate Republicans would then work to approve the excluded ICE deportation funds, and elements of an elections bill known as the SAVE America Act, through the budget reconciliation process, which would give Republicans the ability to approve a package with a simple majority instead of the 60-vote threshold needed to advance most legislation.

Senators expressed newfound optimism Monday night that they were on the cusp of a deal. After a White House meeting with President Donald Trump earlier in the evening, GOP senators appeared convinced a deal was at hand on a plan that would allow tens of thousands of DHS workers to begin receiving paychecks, including Transportation Security Administration airport security workers who had been staying home in droves.

Sen. Steve Daines, who attended the White House session alongside border czar Tom Homan and newly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, called the nearly two-hour meeting "very productive." Daines said Republicans were working on a "framework with our Democratic colleagues" to get a deal done this week, with a "subsequent reconciliation bill where we will have components of the SAVE Act in that as well."

The deal structure represented a reversal of fortune. The new tone marked a stunning turnaround from just 24 hours earlier, when Trump publicly trashed a Thune proposal to fund the entire department except for ICE, with Republicans hoping to fund that agency themselves at a later time through a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill. At a Memphis roundtable Monday, Trump had told Republicans, "don't make any deal on anything," insisting that the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID to cast a ballot, be welded into any DHS funding agreement. But at the Monday meeting, senators appeared to have convinced Trump that ICE funding could be gained separately through the partisan reconciliation process.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin captured the whiplash plainly. "A deal's always possible, but it's not very encouraging when Thune embraces our position and says, 'Let's do this on a bipartisan basis,' and the president says, 'No,'" Durbin said. "There's some frustration."

Sen. Chris Murphy, the senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, struck a more constructive tone, saying splitting off ICE enforcement funding was "the most likely path this week" to reopening most of the agency. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, while cautious, acknowledged that "both sides are talking in a serious way."

The sudden shift in the monthlong standoff came as U.S. airports jammed with long lines after routine Homeland Security funding was halted, leaving TSA understaffed during the spring travel season. Democrats were refusing to fund Homeland Security without restraints on Trump's immigration enforcement and mass deportation operations following the deaths of two U.S. citizens during ICE protests in Minneapolis. The administration further strained airport operations when Trump ordered ICE agents to assist TSA screeners, a move that drew criticism from lawmakers in both parties.

Senators said they expected negotiators to work through the night hammering out details and present written proposals for both parties to discuss Tuesday at their weekly caucus lunches. Any deal that clears the Senate would still need to pass the House, where Republican leaders face a tight majority and their own internal divisions. Republicans would then confront an accelerated timeline to assemble a reconciliation package combining ICE deportation funding and SAVE Act provisions, all in the months before midterm elections.

The reconciliation maneuver comes with limitations, chiefly that the bill's components must have a direct impact on the budget, a constraint that could complicate efforts to attach the SAVE America Act's voter ID provisions to a spending vehicle. Thune himself acknowledged publicly that the votes for passing the SAVE Act through normal order simply are not there, making reconciliation the only viable avenue Republicans have floated for keeping that priority alive.