Senate Majority Leader John Thune is accusing Democrats of ‘going in circles’ as the DHS shutdown drags on.
Lawmakers are still at an impasse over how to end a partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown, which began on February 14 over congressional Democrats’ refusal to fund the department charged with carrying out the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.
Democrats have spent recent weeks tangling with Republicans over how to fund the department. Democratic leaders made clear on Wednesday that they are still miles apart from Republicans on making a deal that appeases their base’s desire for new restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the wake of two federal-officer-involved fatal shootings of American citizens earlier this year.
Senate Republicans currently hold a 53-seat majority, meaning that a handful of Democrats are required to clear a filibuster.
But Senate Majority Leader John Thune says Democrats’ demands are unrealistic and risk dragging the shutdown into another treacherous week.
“They’re asking for things that have already been turned down. So, it just seems like they’re going in circles,” Thune told reporters. He added that Democrats’ department-protocol proposals, such as judicial warrants for ICE arrests and bans on immigration officer masking, have never been on the table for Republicans and that Democrats “know that.”
“Democrats have continued to move the goal posts over all of this time,” echoed Senator John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the Senate GOP whip.
The weeks-long impasse over DHS funding comes as millions of Americans are experiencing historically long lines at airports alongside fatigued, unpaid, and understaffed Transportation Security Administration teams. Lawmakers are set to leave Washington this weekend for a two-week Easter and Passover recess, but Thune has threatened to keep the Senate in session until lawmakers reach a deal.
Complicating matters further, President Trump has urged Republicans in recent days to pair any DHS funding bill with the SAVE America Act, a sprawling voter eligibility bill that would require individuals to provide proof of citizenship to vote, among other election-related proposals. Trump has continued to prioritize speedy passage in part because he is convinced that a voter ID bill will help Republicans win the 2026 midterm elections.
Thune has soured on the idea of tying a must-pass DHS bill to voter ID legislation that faces unified opposition from congressional Democrats.
“I think you all know that’s not realistic,” he recently told reporters.
Instead, a group of Senate Republican dealmakers have urged Trump to bless a DHS funding bill that would fund all of DHS except for ICE, which has continued to operate amid the shutdown because last year’s reconciliation bill funded immigration enforcement subagencies through 2029.
This team of Republicans is urging the president to support a separate legislative effort that would pair portions of the SAVE America Act to ICE funding through the budget reconciliation process, which is not subject to the Senate filibuster’s 60-vote threshold for ending debate and would only require a simple majority to pass.
Pressed during Wednesday’s White House briefing on the president’s openness to pushing the SAVE America Act through reconciliation, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “I think he’s willing to try all strategies.”
Election-integrity-focused Republicans insist that this Senate GOP leader-backed effort is doomed to fail because the parliamentarian will strip any reconciliation bill of legislative provisions that are not budget-related. They characterize the proposal as a half-hearted effort by Senate GOP leaders to signal publicly that they’re prioritizing the SAVE America Act despite knowing that the effort will be dead on arrival on parliamentarian review. They also argue that any DHS deal that does not include ICE funding risks losing Republican support in both the House and the Senate.
Acting TSA chief Ha Nguyen McNeill testified before the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday that more than 480 TSA airport screeners have quit since the shutdown began in mid-February. She thanked ICE agents who have been dispatched to airports in recent days for helping to “alleviate the burden on our workforce.”
Friday will mark $1 billion in missing payroll if a deal is not reached, she cautioned, and missed paychecks have already required some TSA staffers to sell blood and plasma or even sleep in their cars to get by. Some airports are already reaching 40–50 percent callout rates amid the surge in Spring Break travel.
“Not only is the shutdown decreasing the number of interested candidates for those we are able to hire, they are required to complete 4 to 6 months of training before they are certified to work at checkpoints,” McNeill warned. “At this point, newly hired officers will not be able to work on the checkpoint until well after the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This is a dire situation.”
“We are facing a potential perfect storm of severe staffing shortages and an influx of millions of passengers at our airports for the World Cup games in less than 80 days,” she added.