Senate unanimously advances DHS funding deal without ICE and CBP amid shutdown

Congress is poised to end the Homeland Security shutdown after the Senate proposed a new last-minute deal, but it came at the cost of a temporary ceding of ground by Republicans to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The Senate unanimously advanced a deal to reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the early hours of Friday morning, 42 days after the shutdown prompted by the Trump administration’s immigration operations in Minnesota.

It was a deal that largely gave Schumer and Senate Democrats what they wanted: no funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and parts of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But it lacked the rigorous reforms it wanted, such as requiring court warrants or requiring officers to unmask themselves.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Republicans have likely made their “final” offer to Democrats to reopen DHS. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Although the deal mirrored Democrats’ previous attempts to pass similar legislation that excluded immigration funding, Thune argued that Democrats were walking away empty-handed in the political fight over immigration enforcement.

“We’ve been trying to get the whole thing financed for weeks,” Thune said. “And, I mean, at the end of the day, that’s what they were willing to agree to. But again, it’s different that it didn’t have any reforms in it. I mean, they didn’t get any reforms from DHS, which they could have had if they had been willing to work with us a little bit on this.”

Schumer said that if Republicans hadn’t blocked their initial attempts, “this could have been done three weeks ago.”

“This is exactly what we wanted,” Schumer said. “This is what we asked for, and I’m very proud of my caucus. My caucus delivered.”

The DHS funding deal now heads to the House, where Republicans are unenthusiastic about not funding key parts of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.

The latest plan came after Senate Democrats blocked a seventh attempt to reopen DHS, after discussions throughout the day Thursday appeared to yield little progress toward a resolution. Trump also announced plans to sign an order that would pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers, as major airports are rocked by staggering lines and mind-blowing wait times amid the shutdown.

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democrats rejected Republicans’ latest deal to reopen DHS and promised a counteroffer with reforms in return. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

While this is in part a further concession to Democrats, the underlying argument that Republicans have consistently made is that if Schumer and his caucus wanted reforms, they should agree to fund immigration enforcement.

And ICE and CBP still have about $75 billion in cash from Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” giving the agencies a buffer for a while.

“The good news is we anticipated this a year ago. I mean, one of the reasons we frontloaded the ‘big, beautiful bill’ with advanced funding for Homeland Security was because we anticipated that this was probably going to happen, and it happened,” Thune said. “I still think it’s unfortunate. The Democrats wanted reforms. We tried to work with them on reforms. In the end, they got no reforms.”

The same process used to pass this colossal legislative package will likely be used again to fund immigration enforcement.

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Badge and equipment of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. (Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., plans to defund ICE and CBP for several years.

“Democrats are trying to defund ICE for the rest of the fiscal year — ultimately, they won’t succeed,” Schmitt said on

That could prove difficult, however, given that Republicans want to bring several other priorities into the mix, including parts of the Safeguarding American Voters Eligibility Act (SAVE) and financing the war in Iran.

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And some Republicans are already setting expectations about what can and cannot be accomplished through the party-line process, given that everything in the bill must be subject to strict rules in the Senate.

“I think we need to aim a little lower on this reconciliation bill,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital. “We need to target ICE funding over 10 years, I think that’s the number one priority for us.”