Senate unanimously moves to fund most of DHS, except ICE and border patrol, in rare overnight session
Originally Published: 27 MAR 26 02:44 ET
By Ted Barrett, Morgan Rimmer, CNN
(CNN) — The Senate unanimously moved to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and part of Customs and Border Protection, in a rare overnight session.
The agreement would fund other DHS components, such as the Transportation Security Administration and US Coast Guard, but the House will still need to act before funded agencies within the department can reopen.
After negotiations fell apart earlier Thursday evening, senators focused on moving the funding they were able to agree on by unanimous consent. On his way to the floor in the wee hours of the morning on Friday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters, “We’re gonna execute on as much as DHS as we can tonight, and then we’ll fund the rest of it later.”
Pressed on what specifically would be funded, Thune replied, “I think it’ll be everything but ICE and CBP today. So, we’ll have to do the rest of that,” though he noted that, “I think customs, they cleared customs,” but not border patrol.
Thune said that he spoke with President Donald Trump earlier Thursday evening, before Trump announced he would direct DHS to pay TSA agents even if the department remained unfunded.
“I talked to him earlier today, right before he made his announcement. So yeah, I mean he anticipates what we’re attempting to do here,” he told reporters.
However, asked whether he believes the House will adopt the same measure to fund most of the department, Thune said, “I don’t know what the House will do.”
“I mean, the House is aware of what we’re contemplating, I think, and I — think they’re probably anxious to take this up any more than, you know, this time of the day, on a Friday, but hopefully they’ll be around and we can get at least a lot of the government opened up again, and then we’ll, we’ll go from there,” he continued.
Thune argued that, while Democrats had initially said they would fund everything but ICE and CBP, Democrats have now lost the opportunity to leverage changes to ICE protocols and tactics. “I still think it’s unfortunate,” he said. “The Dems wanted reforms. We tried to work with them on reforms. They ended up getting no reforms. But, you know, we’re going to have to fight some of those battles another day.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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