The Senate sent its deal to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security back to the House on Thursday morning — marking what should be the beginning of the end of a historic partial government shutdown.
The Senate’s action, taken in a mostly empty chamber just after 7 a.m., came less than a day after President Donald Trump effectively endorsed a two-track strategy for DHS: funding most of it through a bipartisan deal with Democrats then using the party-line budget reconciliation process for immigration enforcement activities.
That means undertaking a redo of the bill Senate Majority Leader John Thune moved through the Senate last week only to see it rejected by the House, where conservatives balked at separating out enforcement funding.
Now the bill is headed back across the Capitol. The Senate approved Thune’s motion Thursday to set aside the House’s plan, an eight-week all-DHS stopgap, and instead give it a second chance to pass the Senate bill, which omits funding for ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection that Democrats oppose.
