By Richard Cowan, Nolan D. McCaskill and Joseph Ax
March 27 (Reuters) – Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday rejected a bipartisan Senate compromise to end a six-week partial government shutdown, raising the prospect that travelers may continue to see long security lines at U.S. airports through the busy spring break season.
Instead, the House will vote on a temporary measure to extend funding for the Department of Homeland Security at current levels for two months, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson said, a move that is likely to prolong the impasse.
Democrats in the Senate oppose a status quo extension without meaningful limits on President Donald Trump’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement, the dispute that prompted the shutdown. The Senate adjourned for a two-week recess after passing its bill in the early morning hours on Friday.
Johnson called the Senate bill a “gambit” and a “joke” and sought to blame Democrats for the impact on air travel. Earlier, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Johnson’s 60-day extension was “dead on arrival” in the Senate.
“We’ve been clear from day one: Democrats will fund critical homeland security functions — but we will not give a blank check to Trump’s lawless and deadly immigration militia without reforms,” Schumer said in a statement.
The Senate measure would restore funding for most of the Department of Homeland Security, including airport security screeners, disaster-response workers and members of the U.S. Coast Guard, who have worked without pay since mid-February.
But the Senate solution does not address the underlying impasse over immigration. The bill lacked funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the Border Patrol, the two agencies responsible for immigration enforcement. It also omitted Democratic demands for new limits on immigration agents’ tactics, such as barring agents from wearing masks and requiring body cameras.
The shutdown has led to long lines at U.S. airports, and many of the 50,000 security officers who have gone without pay have called in sick or resigned.
Airports around the country on Friday were reporting very long lines, including in New York, Atlanta and New Orleans. Baltimore recommended travelers arrive at least three hours ahead of time, as lines went out the door onto the sidewalk.
DEMOCRATS BLOCK DHS FUNDS AFTER U.S. CITIZENS KILLED
Democrats, the minority party in both houses of the U.S. Congress, used what little leverage they have to block DHS funding after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. Democratic lawmakers want to impose restraints on Trump’s immigration-enforcement push that has resulted in more than half a million deportations and created chaos in U.S. cities.
The partial government shutdown did not affect that activity, as both ICE and Customs and Border Patrol are able to draw on separate funding from the sweeping tax and spending bill Republicans passed last year.
Republicans are expected to try to secure new funding on their own through a cumbersome procedure that would allow them to bypass Democratic opposition, though it is unclear whether the party can maintain enough unity in an election year to do so.
Locked out of power in Washington, Democrats have forced two government shutdowns in the past six months. Neither delivered the results they sought, as they failed to secure expiring health subsidies last November and came out of the latest standoff without a deal on immigration enforcement.
Still, Trump’s administration has backed off, at least for now, from the confrontational and at times violent tactics that sparked mass protests in Minneapolis, Chicago and other cities.
Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem this month. Her successor, former Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin, has signaled support for some Democratic proposals, such as limiting the ability of agents to forcibly enter homes without a judicial warrant.
Other Democratic proposals are likely dead in the water. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said their call for agents to operate without masks was a “nonstarter.”
“It’s not about reforming,” Homan said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas. “It’s about crippling ICE. It’s about taking away their authorities.”
Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said Democrats had damaged Congress’ annual funding process, weakened national security, and set a precedent that they may come to regret.
“Democrats remained intransigent and unreasonable with their list of demands,” she said in a statement.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Nolan D. McCaskill, David Shepardson and Ted Hesson in Washington, and Anusha Shah and Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Chizu Nomiyama, Daniel Wallis and David Gregorio)
