US Senate fails for seventh time to advance bill to partly fund DHS

The Senate again failed to advance a bill to fund part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has now been shut down for almost six weeks.The latest vote came just hours after Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order instructing Markwayne Mullin, the DHS secretary, to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents during the shutdown, a move that could ease the immediate urgency for Congress to reach a deal as it heads into a scheduled two‑week recess.By a vote of 53-47, mostly along party lines, the upper chamber fell short of the 60 votes needed to move the legislation forward – the seventh failed attempt. Only Democratic senator John Fetterman broke with his party to vote in favor of the bill. John Thune, the Senate majority leader, filed a motion to reconsider, allowing the bill to be brought up again.Lawmakers remain deadlocked as they try to reach an agreement to fund affected parts of the DHS, including the TSA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), the coast guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).Thune cast the latest proposal from Republicans as the party’s “last and final” offer, but it was ultimately rejected by Democrats, who have consistently demanded stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement after Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by officers during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis in January.While negotiations fell apart on Thursday, Trump invoked a national emergency to immediately pay 50,000 airport security officers affected by the shutdown. On Truth Social, the president said he would sign an executive order to “quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports”, while adding that it’s “is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it!”Speaking to reporters, Thune said Trump’s order will take “the immediate pressure off” but acknowledged that it’s “a short-term solution”.According to multiple reports, Republican leadership in the Senate will draft text to fund as much of the DHS as possible, with the hope of “hot lining” the resolution and clearing it by unanimous consent. “This is not the outcome that we wanted, but unfortunately, Democrats have shown themselves unwilling to support law enforcement,” Thune said in an email reported by Axios.This week, Senate Republicans presented a proposal for a bill that would fund shuttered DHS subagencies such as the TSA, but withhold money for the enforcement and removal operations conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Their hope is to still pass that ICE funding, along with money for the administration’s military campaign against Iran and portions of the Save America Act, through reconciliation – a process that requires only a simple majority in the Senate.Democrats, for their part, have countered with a measure that coupled DHS funding with a host of new reforms on immigration enforcement operations. GOP lawmakers quickly dismissed the offer.Earlier, the House passed a GOP-drafted bill to re-open the DHS for a third time. With a 218-206 vote, four Democrats in the lower chamber crossed party lines in support of the funding measure.Since ICE received $75bn through Trump’s sweeping policy bill last year, it has been largely insulated from the funding lapse that has hit other parts of the DHS.At a House homeland security hearing on Wednesday, Ha Nguyen McNeill, the acting TSA administrator, said airports nationwide are experiencing historic wait times, and warned TSA employees will have missed a cumulative $1bn in paychecks this fiscal year due to repeated DHS shutdowns.“Some are sleeping in their cars, selling their blood and plasma, and taking on second jobs to make ends meet,” McNeill said, adding that at least 40% of TSA staff are not reporting to work because they cannot afford to do so without pay. At the White House, Karoline Leavitt said nearly 500 TSA officers have quit since the shutdown began last month.Earlier, senators also failed to advance an amendment to the president’s prized bill that would require voters to present photo identification at the polls. The amendment, sponsored by Republican John Husted, failed to overcome the filibuster and received no Democratic support. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said the amendment would “impose the single strictest voter ID law in America”.