Senate’s Homeland Security Funding Proposal Sidesteps ICE, Aims to Ease Airport Delays

WASHINGTON — In a bid to resolve the ongoing impasse over the Homeland Security budget, senators are deliberating a new proposal. This plan aims to fund the majority of the department, ensuring that Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers at airports who are currently unpaid can receive their salaries. However, the proposal notably excludes funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, which have been at the heart of the dispute.

This potential breakthrough emerged after a group of Republican senators held a meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House late Monday. The senators indicated that negotiators were expected to work through the night to fine-tune the details. They plan to present written proposals for discussion at the weekly caucus lunches on Tuesday.

“All I can say is that the discussions have been very positive and productive, and hopefully headed in the right direction,” remarked Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., expressing cautious optimism about the progress being made.

Echoing this sentiment, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer conveyed to reporters, “Both sides are working in a serious way,” underscoring the earnestness of the negotiations.

This sudden shift marks a potential turning point in the month-long deadlock, which has left U.S. airports grappling with long lines due to the lack of routine Homeland Security funding. The TSA has been particularly affected, being understaffed during the busy spring travel season. The standoff persists as Democrats remain firm in their refusal to fund Homeland Security without imposing restraints on the administration’s immigration enforcement and deportation operations. This stance follows public outcry over the deaths of two U.S. citizens during recent ICE protests in Minneapolis.

Trump took the extraordinary step over the weekend of ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to provide airport security, drawing alarm from some lawmakers that it could escalate tensions.

The contours of the deal under consideration would fund most of Homeland Security, but exclude funding for one main part of ICE – the enforcement and removal operations that are core to Trump’s deportation agenda.

Under the package being floated, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations would be funded as well as Customs and Border Protection, but with new guardrails to position officers from those divisions in their traditional roles, rather than as they have been used more recently in immigration roundups in cities. It would also include a number of changes in immigration operations that Democrats have demanded, including mandating that officers wear body cameras and identification.

Since so much of ICE is already funded through Trump’s big tax breaks bill, and immigration officers are still receiving paychecks during the partial government shutdown, senators said the new restraints would also be imposed on operations that rely on that funding source, as well.

“I’m going to be working through the night,” said Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, a chief negotiator who returned from the White House meeting hopeful they had a solution to “land this plane.”

“We’re going to be working diligently,” she said.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who was not part of the group at the White House, said his understanding was that there was a “sense of urgency” coming from the talks.

Coons described various choices before the senators at this point – from no money at all for ICE but also no restraints on the agency operations, to fully funding ICE but with more of the restraints Democrats have demanded, to a middle option of funding most of DHS excluding ICE’s enforcement and removal operations. That middle option is what he and other senators understood was broadly on the table after the White House talks.

“First step is to get the proposal in writing,” said Sen. Angus King, the Independent from Maine. “I want to see exactly what that means.”

Senators late Monday also confirmed Markwayne Mullin as Homeland Security secretary. He takes over for Kristi Noem, who led the department’s immigration enforcement operations that erupted with the public outcry and the funding standoff.

Mullin provides a potentially new face for the immigration operation. During his confirmation hearing last week, Mullin touched on another key demand Democrats want – ensuring a judge has signed off on warrants that immigration officers use to search people’s homes, rather than simply relying on administrative warrants issued by the department.

“This is significant,” Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said about the progress toward changes. “Noem is gone. That’s a big deal.”

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said he was hopeful senators could work things out. “Look, there’s a lot of different variables in the equations,” he said. “I’m hopeful we’ll get there.”