The Senate is closing in on a new deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security after a five-week shutdown causing major delays in airports and prompting national security concerns due to foreign conflicts.
A group of Republican senators met with the White House on Monday evening to hash out the details of a potential agreement, hoping to end the gridlock with Democrats who have demanded reforms for how immigration officers operate. The deal, if approved, would fund most of the department such as TSA and the Coast Guard but leave some areas such as deportation operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement unfunded.
Those more controversial funds for ICE could then be handled in a future reconciliation package, a procedural tool that would allow Republicans to avoid a filibuster and approve the funds through a party-line vote.
These plans are still fluid. Democrats are still reviewing the details and waiting for the proposal to be put into legislative text.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., confirmed the latest proposal would fund about 95% of the DHS budget, with other Republicans noting the rest could be funded in a later bill.
ICE and Customs and Border Patrol already have some funds that were approved during last summer’s reconciliation package, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. As a result, those employees have been paid through the shutdown and operations have largely stayed the same.
“I think the arguments have been made, and clearly that what we are doing here, and thanks to his work last summer and our work last summer, we pre funded a lot of the ICE budget,” Thune said on Tuesday. “I think that, coupled with the fact that we also have possibility of a budget reconciliation bill ... I think the president evidently was persuaded by those arguments.”
The portions that have been stripped out would include funds for Enforcement and Removal Operations. However, Democrats are still demanding further reforms in the bill, arguing it doesn’t go far enough to crack down on what they consider “rogue” immigration officers.
As a result, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats would send a counteroffer to Republicans that include stricter reforms — prompting Republicans to criticize them as being unreasonable.
“Every time we get to the point where we should have a deal, then (Schumer) wants additional things,” Sen. John Hoeven, who has been part of the White House negotiations, said on Tuesday. “What does that tell you?”
Still, Republican leaders expressed optimism for the first time in weeks that the shutdown could be nearing its end.
“I’m more optimistic that by the end of the week we will fund the Department of Homeland Security,” Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican appropriator in the Senate, told reporters on Monday.
The Senate is scheduled to leave Friday for a two-week recess, but those plans could be scuttled if DHS is still shut down.
The proposal reflects much of what’s been floated over the last few weeks. Democrats have been pushing to strip ICE from the larger funding bill, but that has mostly been rebuffed by top Senate Republicans concerned it would leave border operations with no money.
Still, some Republicans have expressed skepticism that the tax package from last summer is enough to keep immigration operations running.
“You can say the Big Beautiful Bill will do this, but the way I read it, that’s not the case. So I’ll make it easy for my colleagues — just read it for yourself and show me," Sen Rick Scott, R-Fla., said in a post on X. “Any vote that fails to fund the people who keep us safe is a failure to the American people, and it’s putting our families’ safety at risk. I cannot in good conscience support that.”
Trump wants SAVE Act passed first
The deal also comes just one day after President Donald Trump threatened not to make any deal with Democrats unless the minority party agreed to pass Republicans’ sweeping election reform bill. That threw a wrench into negotiations, as Democrats have adamantly opposed the bill seeking to establish proof-of-citizenship and voter ID requirements for federal elections.
Trump sidestepped questions on Tuesday about whether he supports the latest offer posed by Democrats, noting he would take “a good hard look at it.”
“I think any deal they make, I’m pretty much not happy with it,” Trump said.
Instead, Republicans are taking some aspects of the SAVE America Act and placing those in the same budget reconciliation bill as the ICE funding. It’s not entirely clear how that would work, as the Senate reconciliation process has strict budgetary rules.
Still, it would ease at least one of Trump’s demands and could unlock talks to end the partial shutdown.