Senate advances deal to fund agency with TSA

The Senate on Thursday advanced a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security — including the Transportation Security Administration — taking a step toward ending the shutdown that had disrupted air travel for much of the last month.

The legislation passed in a pro forma session — a brief meeting of either congressional chamber where legislative business typically does not take place — as lawmakers are out of town on a two-week recess.

The House, which met in its own pro forma session later Thursday morning, did not take up the measure, meaning the partial government shutdown will likely extend through the weekend. The House is next due to meet April 6 in a pro forma session, and neither chamber is scheduled to return in full until the week of April 13, following a two-week recess.

Democrats have refused to fund DHS since February unless changes are made to its immigration enforcement practices. In January, federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis as part of a federal immigration surge, sparking months of negotiations over the future of the agency.

Meanwhile, pressure has mounted on lawmakers to reach a deal as unpaid TSA agents missed work and quit in large numbers, causing long security lines at airports.

The Senate bill advanced on Thursday would fund DHS except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection, though both of those sub-agencies have funds available from the 2025 Republican tax and spending package.

The Senate advanced the bill a day after Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced they had reached a two-track deal to fund DHS. Johnson and the House GOP initially rejected the Senate’s approach, with the speaker calling it “a joke” last week.

By Wednesday, Johnson had changed his tune.

“In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited,” Johnson and Thune said in a joint statement announcing the deal.

That includes the appropriations bill the Senate passed on Thursday, as well as an attempt at budget reconciliation — a method of passing budget and spending priorities that requires a simple majority in the Senate, rather than the 60 normally required to overcome a filibuster.

Republicans would aim to fund ICE and CBP through the reconciliation bill, which President Donald Trump has requested on his desk by June 1.

″(W)e are going forward to fund our incredible ICE Agents and Border…