GOP Leaders Push Split Plan to End DHS Shutdown, Leaving Florida Border Funding in Doubt

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced Wednesday a two-track strategy to end what they called a record partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security — a plan that still faces significant obstacles in both chambers.

The joint statement from Johnson (R-La.) and Thune (R-S.D.) said Republicans would move in the coming days to fully fund DHS using parallel legislative tracks: most of the department would be funded through a bipartisan agreement requiring Democratic support, while U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol would be funded separately through party-line budget legislation requiring no Democratic votes.

Neither track is assured. Senate Democrats could block the bipartisan portion, and the GOP's most conservative members — who have demanded full, immediate funding for all Trump immigration and deportation operations — could resist any deal that delays ICE and Border Patrol funding through a separate bill.

The shutdown's origins trace to last week, when House Republicans rejected a bipartisan Senate funding agreement, substituting a 60-day full DHS funding bill instead. The Senate passed its version through unanimous consent early Friday. The House's counter-move collapsed the deal, and lawmakers departed for a two-week spring recess without a resolution.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that "Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction."

President Donald Trump added pressure Wednesday via social media, urging Republicans to fund ICE and Border Patrol without Democratic votes and demanding the legislation reach his desk by June 1. "We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

The budget package under preparation would fund ICE and Border Patrol through the remainder of Trump's term — a design intended to insulate those agencies from future Democratic objections to the administration's immigration enforcement agenda.

Congress returns from spring recess in mid-April. Whether Johnson can recall the House earlier for a vote remains unclear.

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