Senate Passes DHS Funding Bill, but Shutdown Continues as House GOP Rejects It

The Senate voted unanimously early Friday to approve a stopgap spending bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, formally ending a 42‑day partial shutdown.

By Friday afternoon, House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected the Senate-passed bill that would fund the Transportation Security Administration and most of the Department of Homeland Security, saying he will instead bring up an alternative measure for a vote. House Republicans objected that the Senate plan leaves out new money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, while Democrats say they will not approve additional funding for those agencies without changes to immigration enforcement policies.

Despite the stalemate, TSA employees will be paid early next week.

“TSA officers should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30. TSA is grateful to the President and Secretary for their leadership to put money back into the pockets of TSA employees who worked without pay during the ongoing Democrat DHS shutdown,” the department said in a statement to the AP Friday.

The shutdown began on February 14 with Democrats refusing to back a package that continued current practices at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without new restraints following two deadly incidents in Minneapolis involving U.S. citizens. 

In the weeks leading up to Friday’s vote to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, the Senate repeatedly failed to advance legislation that would have funded TSA and other DHS components, with at least five to six formal attempts falling short and additional efforts blocked through procedural objections. Public statements from Democratic lawmakers have characterized these combined failed votes and blocked unanimous‑consent requests as seven or more instances in which Republicans prevented TSA or broader DHS funding from moving forward.

TSA’s acting administrator, Ha Nguyen McNeill, told House lawmakers that the shutdown had already done long‑term damage to workforce morale and warned that resignations could accelerate if the funding lapse continued. 

The lapse in DHS funding left airport security, disaster response and key cybersecurity functions operating without pay. Reports showed that by Wednesday, more than 3,120 Transportation Security Administration employees had stopped showing up for work, and 480 had resigned outright. Callout rates topped 40 percent at some airports, leading to long security lines and missed flights.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he would sign an executive order to ensure TSA agents are paid, denouncing what he called “Chaos at the Airports.”

Trump’s plan to pay TSA officers during the shutdown depended on using DHS money that had already been approved in an earlier. News reports say it is not clear what specific legal authority would allow that money to be shifted to pay TSA salaries while the normal DHS budget is still on hold under the Antideficiency Act. Experts quoted in those reports describe the move as an interpretation of existing funds, not as an option that had clearly been available.

The bill passed Friday intentionally excludes funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as certain segments of Customs and Border Protection.

ICE agents continued to be paid during the shutdown because their salaries are drawn from a separate, multi‑year $75 billion funding stream approved in Trump’s earlier “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which did not lapse when the annual DHS budget expired. 

Democrats are using the shutdown to push for ICE and CBP rules changes, not just more or less money. They tied reopening the rest of DHS to getting new limits and accountability measures on how ICE and related officers operate. Their main asks in various proposals and public demands include:

• Guardrails on deployments
  • Stop using Homeland Security Investigations and some CBP units as de‑facto immigration SWAT teams in cities, and keep them in their traditional roles (counter‑trafficking, drugs, fraud, etc.).
• Transparency and identification
  • Require body cameras for ICE and CBP officers involved in enforcement actions.
  • Require visible identification badges and prohibit masked, anonymous officers during operations and protests.
• Limits on aggressive enforcement
  • Narrow or clarify when and where large‑scale sweeps and “collateral” arrests can happen, especially in urban areas like Minneapolis.
  • Add rules around warrants, use of force, and racial profiling safeguards.
• Oversight and reporting
  • Stronger reporting requirements on arrests, use of force, and deaths in custody, plus clearer channels for complaints and investigations.

Should Johnson’s alternative bill pass the House, Senate members will need to return to DC to hold their own vote.