House GOP Conjures Up Conspiracy Theories About Senate-Passed DHS Bill

Shortly after President Donald Trump signed a presidential memo on Friday ordering the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees, a key House committee meeting devolved into conspiracy theories as it debated whether to act on a Senate bill that would do the same.

Trump’s executive action, whose authority is questionable, comes as the Senate-passed bill that would fund DHS without Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has stalled.

“The American air transportation system has reached its breaking point,” Trump said in the memo authorizing the payments. “I have determined that these circumstances constitute an emergency situation compromising the security of the Nation.”

House Republican leaders — apparently upset that the Senate GOP didn’t consult them before striking a deal with Democrats — are refusing to support the DHS funding bill that the Senate passed by voice vote around 2:30 Friday morning.

Instead, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and leaders plan to push for a vote on a continuing resolution (CR) to fund all of DHS through May 22, saying they will not vote for a funding package that gives no money to ICE and CBP.

Although the Senate-passed bill provides no new funding for ICE and CBP, those agencies have access to billions of dollars in funding that Republicans have already authorized for them in their 2025 reconciliation bill, dubbed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”

Senate Democrats have pledged for more than a month to oppose any legislation funding the two agencies without reforms, suggesting Johnson’s efforts in the House would go nowhere in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass.

“Republicans will not participate in any effort to reopen our borders or end immigration controls,” Johnson said at a news conference Friday. “We will deport dangerous illegal criminal aliens because it is a fundamental function of government. »

“This bet that was made last night is a joke,” Johnson added. “I am completely convinced that there is no way that every Republican in the Senate will read the language of this bill.”

The House Rules Committee met Friday afternoon to consider the House GOP’s stopgap. Republicans on the committee repeatedly speculated that the Senate-passed funding package — based on a Democratic bill that had been before lawmakers for weeks — was a deal done in secret and that’s why the upper chamber took a voice vote in the early hours of Friday morning.

Republican members of the committee, which include three members of the House Freedom Caucus, also said they did not believe all senators had read the bill before it passed.

Democrats on the Rules Committee rejected those claims, saying the Senate majority leader brought the bill up for a voice vote himself.

It was passed “by voice in the middle of the night,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said when asked by a Democrat why none of the Senate Republicans opposed the DHS funding bill, pointing out that senators did not take a roll call vote.

“You control the Senate,” replied Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-MA). “You control the agenda in the Senate. And the person stopping people from paying is the Speaker of the House.”

Meanwhile, House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) pointed out that any Republican senator present in the Senate during the voice vote could have prevented the bill from passing.

Roy began yelling at the two Democrats, saying Senate Democrats “refuse to actually do the job for the American people…And Americans are dying because you refuse to make the country safe.”

“Stop this bullshit,” McGovern shouted as the back and forth continued.

It’s unclear whether the Senate, which has already left town for its two-week Easter recess, would return to consider such a stopgap, if it passes the House. Even if they did, Senate Democratic leaders have already said they would not vote for the stopgap the GOP hopes to advance.

“A 60-day CR that locks in the status quo is dead as soon as it arrives in the Senate, and Republicans know it,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement on Friday. “We have been clear from day one: Democrats will fund critical homeland security functions, but we will not give Trump’s murderous, illegal immigrant militias a blank check without reforms. »

As has been the case with the CR and previous appropriations bills, Senate Republicans would need a handful of Senate Democrats to join them in supporting the stopgap.

Senate Democrats stood united for more than 40 days, true to their word that they would not approve funding for ICE and CBP without significant reforms.