by Misty Severi
Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Wednesday that House and Senate Republicans have reached a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the remainder of the current fiscal year.
The deal omits DHS funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, but the agencies are being funded through the One Big Beautiful Bill, which provides funds for the agencies for four years.
Congressional Republicans will begin the process of approving the funding as early as Thursday morning, according to the New York Times.
“We appreciate and share the President’s determination to once and for all bring an end to the Democrat DHS shutdown,” the two leaders said in a joint statement. “Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process.
“We operated under a belief that while our country is in the midst of an international armed conflict, Democrats might finally come to their senses and understand that defunding our homeland security agencies is beyond reckless and very dangerous,” the leaders continued. “It is now abundantly clear that Democrats place allegiance to their radical left-wing base above all else — including their own power of the purse — which means open borders and protecting criminal illegal aliens.”
The leaders said they hoped Democrats would agree to the House’s 60-day continuing resolution but that the offer to do so was no longer on the table.
“The Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited,” they added. “In return, Democrats will once again demonstrate to the American people their support for open borders and keeping
In reaction to the deal, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction. Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered. We were clear from the start: fund critical security, protect Americans, and no blank check for reckless ICE and Border Patrol enforcement. We were united, held the line, and refused to let Republican chaos win.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries noted the president and Republicans over the last 47 days “have subjected the nation to chaos at ariports, jeopardized our national security and kept the government closed to allow ICE to continue to brutalize the American people without consequence.”
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Misty Severi is a reporter for Just the News.   Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
