Politics

Senate Fails to Advance DHS Funding Amid 27-Day Shutdown

Are Democrats blocking Republican bills to pay TSA agents or are Republicans holding TSA paychecks hostage for ICE funding?

18 hours ago·Updated 2 hours ago

Senate Fails to Advance DHS Funding Amid 27-Day Shutdown

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Above: Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) returns to his office after speaking on the Senate Floor and talking with reporters at the U.S. Capitol on March 11. Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Spin

Republican narrative

Republicans offered four separate stopgap bills to fund the DHS and ensure TSA agents get paychecks, but Democrats blocked every single one while demanding separate votes that would defund immigration enforcement. Democrats are playing politics with national security while airport workers suffer and blue-state airports resort to crowdsourcing gift cards for TSA officers who may miss paychecks.

Katie Britt on X

Shelley Moore Capito on X

Democratic narrative

Republicans blocked five Democratic attempts to fund TSA, FEMA, cyber defenses and the Coast Guard while holding TSA paychecks hostage to force more money for ICE with zero reforms. Republicans refuse to simply fund TSA without strings attached, instead tying it to ICE funding they know is gridlocked after agents killed two people in Minnesota.

Patty Murray on X

Chuck Schumer on X

Cynical narrative

Both parties are deliberately weaponizing the 27-day partial DHS shutdown to score political points rather than resolve it. Republicans block clean funding bills that don’t increase ICE/CBP support, while Democrats reject GOP funding plans over a perceived lack of oversight. Neither side will budge from their core demand, so they let airport security crumble, TSA agents miss paychecks, quit in droves, and travel chaos mounts — all to force the other side to blink first in the bigger immigration fight.

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