The House adopted a budget resolution Wednesday by a 215-211 vote, opening the next phase of a GOP plan that does not automatically fund the Department of Homeland Security. The move came as the White House warned that money used to temporarily pay TSA workers and other staff through executive actions is drying up.
An Office of Management and Budget memo sent late Tuesday to lawmakers said, “DHS will soon run out of critical operating funds, placing essential personnel and operations at risk.” The department has been operating without regular funds for more than two months, since Feb. 14, and the warning added fresh pressure to a fight that has left airport screeners, immigration officers and other workers caught between competing budget plans.
Speaker Mike Johnson said the budget process was necessary to unlock a broader bipartisan bill that would later put money into TSA and other parts of the department. That measure was expected to come to a vote Thursday and would fund much of Homeland Security, but the path to that vote runs through a separate GOP budget process designed to eventually provide $70 billion for immigration enforcement and deportations for the rest of President Donald Trump’s time in office.
Johnson told lawmakers, “It takes time,” and added, “We will get there.” His argument was that the budget resolution had to move first before the larger deal could follow. The White House, for its part, said the temporary money Trump tapped to keep some workers paid is nearly gone, sharpening the immediate stakes of the week’s votes.
The impasse reflects a broader clash over Trump’s immigration agenda. Democrats have refused to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol without changes to those operations, while Republicans have rejected a broader Democratic-backed bill to fund TSA and other Homeland Security functions without money for ICE and Border Patrol. Under Johnson, the House Republican majority has also repeatedly stalled because of internal party disputes, leaving the chamber vulnerable to another round of delays even as funding deadlines tighten.
That is what makes Thursday the next critical test. The House was likely to consider the Democratic-backed bill to fund the department minus Border Patrol and ICE money, but the two sides remain divided over whether Homeland Security should be kept running first and argued over later. For airport screeners and other federal workers, the question is no longer abstract: the department is already living on borrowed time, and the gap between temporary fixes and regular funding is closing fast.