Most of the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is over, but it didn’t come without Republicans ceding some ground to the Democrats. Fox News reports:
Congress is one step closer to ending the Homeland Security shutdown after the Senate advanced a new, last-minute deal, but it came at the price of Republicans ceding ground, temporarily, to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
The Senate unanimously advanced a deal to reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the wee hours of Friday morning, 42 days into the shutdown that was spurred by the Trump administration’s immigration operations in Minnesota.
It was an agreement that largely gave Schumer and Senate Democrats what they wanted — no funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and parts of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But it lacked the stringent reforms they desired, like requiring judicial warrants or requiring agents to unmask.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) treated this as if it were some sort of victory, despite the fact that ICE and some of CBP remain unfunded. He claims that Democrats still didn’t get what they wanted, so in reality, it was one of those compromises where nobody won.
"We've been trying for weeks to fund the whole thing," Thune said. "And, I mean, in the end, this is what they were willing to agree to. But again, it's different that it has zero reforms in it. I mean, they got no reforms on DHS, which they could have had if they had been willing to work with us a little bit on that."
Of course, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is waving the flag of victory. And why not? The Democrats got what they wanted the most from this vote.
"This is exactly what we wanted," Schumer said. "This is what we asked for, and I'm very proud of my caucus. My caucus held the line."
The funding bill now moves back to the House. House Republicans aren’t thrilled with a bill that denies funding to key initiatives of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.
“The latest plan came after Senate Democrats blocked a seventh attempt to reopen DHS, after back-and-forth talks throughout the day on Thursday appeared to yield little progress toward a resolution,” Fox News reports. “Trump also announced his intent to sign an order that would pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents as major airports are rocked with staggering lines and eye-popping wait times amid the shutdown.”
One GOP senator is clapping back with a promise:
Democrats are trying to shut down ICE funding for the remainder of the fiscal year — ultimately they won’t be successful.
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) March 27, 2026
In response, I’ll be pushing to lock in funding for deportation operations and salaries for a decade.
The good news is that ICE and CBP still have $75 billion from the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” This gives both agencies a cushion.
"The good news is we anticipated this a year ago. I mean, one of the reasons we front loaded, pre-loaded up the ‘one big, beautiful bill’ with advanced funding for Homeland Security was because we anticipated this was likely going to happen, and it did," Thune said. "I still think it's unfortunate. The Dems wanted reforms. We tried to work with them on reforms. They ended up getting no reforms."
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