Republicans Plan Party-Line Bill to Fund ICE, Border Patrol and End Shutdown

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced Wednesday a two-track plan to end the Department of Homeland Security's record-long partial shutdown, pivoting sharply from the House GOP's stance just one week ago after President Trump publicly broke the standoff.

The strategy, outlined in a joint statement by Johnson of Louisiana and Thune of South Dakota, calls for the House to first take up a Senate-passed appropriations bill that funds most of DHS through the end of September, with one glaring exception: it excludes Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Those two agencies would then be funded separately through a party-line budget reconciliation bill, a process that bypasses the Senate filibuster and requires no Democratic support.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Johnson and Thune wrote.

The shutdown has stretched into its seventh week, making it the longest partial DHS closure on record. TSA agents, FEMA employees, and other agency workers went weeks without pay as Democrats refused to fund ICE and Border Patrol without reforms to immigration enforcement operations. The impasse began after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during an immigration crackdown, hardening Democratic opposition to any blank-check funding for the agencies.

Trump proved decisive in breaking the logjam. Before the joint announcement, he posted on Truth Social calling on Republicans to send him the reconciliation bill by June 1, a compressed timeline that gives lawmakers roughly six weeks after they return from the current two-week Passover and Easter recess on April 13. "We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote. A White House official confirmed the administration's support for the two-track approach.

The announcement marked a stark reversal for Johnson, who had just last week led House Republicans to reject the identical Senate bill, substituting a measure to fund all of DHS for 60 days instead. That move collapsed negotiations and sent lawmakers home for recess with no resolution.

Republicans plan to use the same budget reconciliation process they employed to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer, which already provided some separate funding for ICE and CBP. The new reconciliation package would extend that immigration enforcement and border security funding for three years. Johnson and Thune said the goal is to make those funding streams "shutdown-proof" against future Democratic obstruction.

The Senate is expected to try to pass the partial DHS appropriations bill as early as Thursday, though Congress remains on recess and the reconciliation bill still requires drafting, scoring by the Congressional Budget Office, and near-unanimous Republican support in both chambers to succeed.