Furious House Republicans reject DHS funding bill, upending shutdown deal

WASHINGTON – Republicans in the House of Representatives are revolting at the eleventh hour against a deal to end the six-week-long Department of Homeland Security shutdown, hurling the prospects of any impending solution into serious political jeopardy.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, after a long call with GOP lawmakers on Friday, March 27, denounced the compromise the Senate unanimously passed in the dead of night. In a highly visible split between House and Senate Republicans, Johnson said the agreement to fund all of DHS minus Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol wasn’t palatable to his members.

“This gambit that was done last night is a joke,” Johnson said. He added that he had just spoken to President Donald Trump and said the president “understands exactly what we’re doing and why, and he supports it.”

Many conservative hardliners woke up in the morning furious about the situation, pledging to withhold their support for advancing the agreement unless it added immigration enforcement funding and a voter ID provision. ICE and Customs and Border Protection, two agencies within DHS, are already operating with cash reserves from a megabill passed last year.

“We can’t believe that the Senate abdicated its responsibility this morning,” Rep. Andy Harris, R-Maryland, said. “This deal is bad for America. It’s bad for Americans. The president has already said he’s going to fund TSA out of funds he has. So it’s not going to affect the airports if we don’t do this today.”

Johnson later said he planned to instead put to a vote a two-month stopgap measure that would keep all of DHS funded at its current levels through May 22.

The last-minute impasse imperiled the likelihood of a swift end to the DHS shutdown, which has upended airport security across the country. If the House passes the stopgap measure – also known as a “continuing resolution,” or CR – senators would have to return to Capitol Hill. Yet many already left Washington for a planned two-week spring recess.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said any legislation other than what Democrats already agreed to would have no chance in the Senate.

“A 60-day CR that locks in the status quo is dead on arrival in the Senate,” he said in a statement. “And Republicans know it.”

Contributing: Bart Jansen, USA TODAY

Zachary Schermele is a congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: House Republicans revolt, rejecting DHS shutdown deal