Pressure builds on Congress as DHS shutdown threatens to drag into April

The shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security is at risk of shattering the record for the longest-ever funding lapse for any federal agency if President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats can’t strike a deal this week.

Lawmakers are scheduled to take a two-week recess for Passover and Easter starting Friday. While the Senate is considering staying in session if the shutdown is not resolved, House GOP leaders do not plan to cut their break short in hopes of reaching an accord, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss private planning.

“It's going to be very, very hard to explain if we leave town this next week without having funded” DHS, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters over the weekend.

Trump threw a curveball into the rekindled talks Sunday night when he declared on Truth Social he would not back any deal unless it includes the GOP’s partisan elections bill, the SAVE America Act. Senators, Trump said, should “lump everything together as one, and VOTE!!!”

“Kill the Filibuster, and stay in D.C. for Easter, if necessary,” he wrote.

The House and Senate are not scheduled to return to business until the week of April 13, when the DHS shutdown would hit Day 60 — significantly exceeding the 43-day record set last fall for the longest federal funding lapse in U.S. history.

The threat of a two-month shutdown — and evidence of lengthening TSA lines at U.S. airports as security officers refuse to work without pay — has spurred an uptick in what had been completely stalled negotiations.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers met twice in the Capitol late last week with Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan. Negotiators continued to talk over the weekend, after the White House laid out an expanded offer Friday that included changes to DHS immigration enforcement tactics — the crux of the shutdown fight.

“We'll see if they can land something,” Thune said in an interview Sunday before Trump delivered his ultimatum. “The clock’s ticking. If we're going to get this done, we've got to get moving pretty quickly here.”

With the urgency to clinch a bipartisan agreement increasing, the White House has sought to engage some of the Democrats who helped negotiate a solution to the broader government funding lapse that ended in November. That includes New Hampshire Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, along with Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

Those senators were among the bipartisan group of lawmakers who met in person with Homan last week, along with Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator.

“I can tell you that Democrats are really united, and we are talking to the White House and telling them what our demands are,” Murray told reporters Sunday afternoon. “I don't know how you define progress. That is really up to the White House, whether they're willing to move forward on this or not.”

Republican negotiators voiced frustration over the weekend that Democrats hadn’t responded to the updated offer the Trump administration delivered Friday night.

“I would have hoped we could continue to build on the momentum, positive momentum, that I felt like we had at the meeting Friday,” Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), chair of the DHS funding panel, said in an interview Sunday. “I'm clearly disappointed.”

Britt noted that the meetings with Homan last week marked the first in-person DHS negotiations between Democratic lawmakers, their Republican counterparts and a delegate from the White House since the talks began almost two months ago.

“The American people need us to get in the room,” Britt said. “And we have to be expeditious about this.”

Democrats on both sides of the Capitol have pressed Republicans multiple times to take up their bills that would fund all of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the secretary’s office.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Saturday on the Senate floor that negotiators are having “productive conversations,” but Congress should fund TSA in the meantime

“Let's keep negotiating the outstanding issues with ICE while sending paychecks to TSA workers now,” he added.

But Republicans continue to object to votes on those proposals, saying the entire department needs to be funded. The House has twice passed DHS funding legislation, but Senate Democrats have repeatedly voted against advancing an all-DHS funding bill — most recently on Friday.

Increasingly, Republicans are highlighting the irony that the funding lapse barely affects the agencies Democrats are trying to reign in, since ICE and CBP received about $140 billion from the tax and spending law Republicans enacted along party lines last summer.

“They're trying to please their base,” Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer, a Republican appropriator, said about Democrats in an interview. “But I would hope their base is smart enough to know that ICE and Border Patrol are already funded.”

Instead, the shutdown is causing the most disruption at agencies like TSA, where more than 300 airport security screeners have quit since funding lapsed more than five weeks ago. As the workforce goes without pay, TSA callouts also tipped over 10 percent multiple days last week, leading to long lines and travel disruptions at airports across the country.

Starting Monday, the Trump administration plans to detail ICE agents to U.S. airports to do jobs like guarding exits, allowing TSA agents to focus on screening passengers and baggage.

“We ought to fund TSA now,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who requested a vote last week on legislation to fund all of DHS except the immigration enforcement agencies. “But I don't know why the Republicans insist on holding federal workers hostage, holding TSA workers hostage, so that they can have an unaccountable paramilitary force on our streets.”

Senate Republican leaders are still waiting to make the call on whether to delay or cancel the chamber’s two-week recess. They’re typically reluctant to send lawmakers home during a crisis that requires legislative action.

In contrast, under Speaker Mike Johnson, House Republican leaders have repeatedly resisted pressure to reconvene the House to consider critical legislation while lawmakers are back home during a congressional recess. They argue it’s up to Senate Democrats to cut a DHS deal with the White House.

“We'll see,” Thune told reporters on Sunday about canceling recess. “We'll kind of see how the rest of the week plays out.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.