The pressure is on the House to sign off on badly needed funding for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and most of the rest of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) following an early morning vote from the Senate.
Senators agreed to a proposal early Friday to fund TSA and other key agencies in DHS by unanimous consent, leaving out U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol. The measure also funds the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Attention now shifts to the lower chamber to see if it can pass the bill Friday before heading out for its scheduled two-week Easter recess. Senators departed after passing the legislation, planning to return in mid-April.
The surprise vote by the Senate came hours after members failed again to reach a deal to fund the entirety of DHS. Members of both parties have been under increasing pressure to reach an agreement as delays at airports nationwide have been growing and TSA employees have been overwhelmed, short-staffed and unpaid.
But the pressure wasn't enough for Democrats and Republicans to reach a deal. The Senate again rejected a House-passed bill Thursday to fund DHS mostly along party lines in a 53-47 vote, falling short of the 60-vote threshold required for the measure to advance.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) kept the vote open for hours to give Republican and Democratic negotiators time to agree on details of a deal to split funding for ICE's emergency removal operations from the rest of DHS funding.
A group of moderate Democrats have been talking to GOP negotiators to try to find an off-ramp to the shutdown, but they were unable to reach a resolution.
Instead, senators agreed to fund all but the agencies responsible for immigration enforcement. Democrats have been pushing that proposal for weeks but repeatedly ran into opposition from Republicans.
Senate leaders sent a hotline request to senators early Friday to see if there would be any objections to the proposal, and there were none, The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports.
Thune told reporters that Republicans rejected the idea before because they were hoping for a deal to fund all of DHS. But he said they "pivoted" after it became clear Democrats wouldn't accept Republicans' proposed reforms to ICE in exchange for agreeing to fund the entire department.
"We had hoped we would get a funding bill and we were trying to accommodate their requests for reform," Thune said. "We couldn't get any closer on it so you kind of pivot to the next strategy."
The key question now is whether the House will be able to get the bill passed Friday and whether President Trump would be willing to sign it into law.
Trump had said on Thursday evening, after it became clear the Senate wouldn't agree to a full DHS appropriations bill, that he would take action to try to alleviate rising TSA issues. He said he would order Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to "immediately" pay TSA agents to address the "emergency situation."
A senior administration official said money from Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act will be used to pay TSA staffers. But if the House can pass the bill and Trump signs it, that wouldn't be necessary.
Airports across the country are badly in need of reinforcements. They've been dealing with rising call-out rates as TSA agents have been without pay for more than a month.
Airports in Texas have suffered some of the most severe disruptions, seeing some of the highest TSA call-out rates in the country, The Hill's Sarah Fortinsky reports.
Thune said he was hopeful Trump would be willing to sign the bill into law.
"I never speak for him, but he understood where we were, where the Democrats were," he said of Trump's support. "I hope so."
Without full funding for DHS, the current partial shutdown will technically break a new record for the longest in U.S. history on Sunday, surpassing the one from last fall. But passing the funding for most of the department would provide new hope for getting TSA and other agencies back on track.
▪ WTOP: Security lines stretch outside terminal at Baltimore airport.
▪ Business Insider: Wait times range from nothing to 4 hours.
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