The Senate passed a slimmed-down funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security on Friday morning, but the measure is getting a cold reception among House Republican leaders and conservatives.
Approval in the upper chamber followed weeks of back-and-forth between Republicans and Democrats over how to fund DHS — which houses the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies — while reforming immigration enforcement operations. In the meantime, the disaster fund dwindled and airport security lines across the country grew out of control.
But neither party got everything it wanted. The bill contains none of the immigration reforms Democrats wanted nor does it fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol. That lack of money may be fatal in the House.
“We want to solve these problems as quickly as possible, but we also understand this dangerous gambit about not funding the border, securing the border and the ability to deport criminal illegal aliens is a serious problem,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters Friday morning.
