Congressional leaders strike deal on Homeland Security funding ahead of shutdown deadline

Congressional leaders have struck a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the remainder of fiscal 2024, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Hill on Monday night, closing out the six bills due by Friday’s shutdown deadline.

Negotiators are still working out the details and legislative text of the DHS agreement, the source said, but the DHS legislation will be a full-year bill and not a stopgap, which lawmakers were eyeing over the weekend.

Punchbowl News was the first to report the development.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) confirmed news of the deal Tuesday morning, noting that committees are working on the text so it can be released and considered “as soon as possible.”

President Biden on Tuesday said he will sign the government funding package “immediately.”

The deal on DHS funding comes as members are racing the clock to stave off a partial government shutdown by Friday’s midnight deadline.

Congress, however, could still find itself needing to pass a short-term continuing resolution before Friday to keep the lights on in Washington as lawmakers finish considering the funding legislation. House Republicans have been adamant that they need at least 72 hours to review any bills before voting on the House floor, and Senate procedure could draw out the consideration process into the weekend.

Six full-year appropriations bills are due Friday, funding DHS; the Pentagon; Financial Services and General Government; the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education; Legislative Branch; and State-Foreign Operations.

Congressional leaders had hoped to unveil text for the bills over the weekend, but disagreements over DHS funding delayed that timeline. Lawmakers have had a deal on the five other appropriations bills.

Leaders were initially looking to move a continuing resolution for DHS, amid bitter partisan divisions over border security and immigration. Republicans, however, said late-stage involvement from the White House in funding talks threw the weekend timeline off course.

Democrats had been pushing for more funding for pay equity for the Transportation Security Administration, a source familiar told The Hill at the time. Republicans, meanwhile, had wanted more money for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention and enforcement efforts.

If the DHS deal holds and Congress gets the remaining six funding bills over the finish line, it would mark a win for Johnson, who has worked to approve the full slate of appropriations bills and avoid having to pass a sprawling, end-of-year omnibus package. Johnson has consistently said he wants to break the “omnibus fever” in Washington.

He also avoided putting a continuing resolution through the end of the fiscal year on the floor, which would have triggered a 1-percent cut across the board.

Johnson, however, will still have to contend with an angry right flank, which has voiced opposition to the government funding process through every twist and turn throughout this Congress. Hard-liners had pressed Johnson to pass the full-year continuing resolution, and they have brushed aside the “minibuses” as two-part omnibus bills.

House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) led a group of 41 Republicans in writing a “Dear Colleague” letter Monday calling on all GOP lawmakers to join them “in rejecting the appropriations package (or something similar) slated to be before the House that will directly fund” the Biden administration’s border policies.

They re-upped their push for “core elements” from H.R. 2, the border security bill House Republicans approved last year.

“At some point, border security has to be more than something aspirational that we simply message on,” the Republicans wrote. “Is there a point at which we will refuse to let this happen on our watch, or is there no threshold of harm to our nation for which we would refuse to fund the government perpetrating the invasion.”

Updated Tuesday, March 19 at 9:42 a.m. ET