The Senate unanimously advanced a bill Friday to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security in a rare overnight session aimed at easing airport security delays caused by a partial government shutdown.
The Senate session took place overnight Thursday into early Friday, March 26–27. The unanimous consent vote (voice vote) on the partial DHS funding bill took place early Friday morning, specifically between 2:00 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. ET on Friday.
The agreement would reopen agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, while excluding funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection.
The House must still act before those components can resume full operations. It came hours after President Donald Trump directed his new DHS secretary to pay TSA agents amid long lines at airports.
On his way to the floor in the early morning hours, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters the chamber would act on what it could agree to that night.
“We’re gonna execute on as much as DHS as we can tonight, and then we’ll fund the rest of it later,” Thune said, CNN reported.
Pressed for details, he added, “I think it’ll be everything but ICE and CBP today. So, we’ll have to do the rest of that,” though he noted, “I think customs, they cleared customs,” but not Border Patrol.
The move marked the 42nd day of the shutdown, which stemmed from disputes over Trump’s immigration enforcement operations. It followed repeated Democratic blocks on earlier funding attempts and came as frustration grew on Capitol Hill ahead of a planned two-week recess.
Thune said Republicans had anticipated the impasse and built in advance funding for Homeland Security in last year’s major domestic policy package.
“The good news is we anticipated this a year ago,” Thune said. “I mean, one of the reasons we front-loaded, pre-loaded up the ‘one big, beautiful bill’ with advanced funding for Homeland Security was because we anticipated this was likely going to happen, and it did.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the outcome matched what Democrats had sought from the start.
“This is exactly what we wanted. This is what we asked for, and I’m very proud of my caucus. My caucus held the line,” Schumer said, Fox News reported.
The bill now heads to the House, where Republicans have expressed reluctance to leave key immigration enforcement agencies unfunded. GOP lawmakers are already preparing to use the reconciliation process later to secure long-term funding for ICE and border patrol.
