White House Urges House To Quickly Fund DHS

WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday urged the House to immediately pass a stalled bipartisan spending bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, which Republicans have refused to take up since the Senate passed it nearly a month ago.

The request, in a memo sent to members of Congress by the White House’s budget office, amounted to a rebuke of Speaker Mike Johnson, who has delayed action on the measure even as the homeland security shutdown has dragged into its 10th week. It came a day after he suggested that he wanted to make modifications to the measure that could further slow its path to enactment.

In the memo, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times, the Trump administration appeared to dismiss Johnson’s idea, calling for the “immediate passage” of the measure “as passed by the Senate.” That bill contains no funding for immigration enforcement after Democrats refused to support that without restrictions on federal agents’ tactics and conduct, which the GOP would not agree to.

The White House also directed the House to quickly approve a Republican budget blueprint that would pave the way for a filibuster-proof bill that would establish a $70 billion multiyear fund for immigration enforcement, which Republicans view as a key component of ending the shutdown.

The memo, first reported by Punchbowl News, came as the House was paralyzed by Republican infighting that kept Johnson from bringing the budget plan — or any of the other major policy items he had scheduled for the week — to the floor. House leaders canceled planned votes on Tuesday afternoon, as it was unclear whether they had enough support to clear a key procedural hurdle to bring up several bills.

That inaction threatened to prolong the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, even as Johnson and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the majority leader, jointly endorsed a two-step plan weeks ago to end it.

On April 1, Johnson and Thune vowed to pass a spending bill to fund the department except for the agencies carrying out the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. They would then begin work on a separate bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of Trump’s second term using a special budget process, known as reconciliation, that could skirt a Democratic filibuster.

Trump backed the plan, and Thune passed the spending bill quickly, with no objection from either party. House Democrats also said they would back it.

But Johnson stalled, as many Republicans balked at a measure that failed to fund immigration enforcement, though the administration has been paying for those functions through a fund enacted last summer as part of their tax cut and domestic policy law. The speaker and other House Republicans have said they would not move on the measure to reopen the department until they saw progress on the reconciliation bill.

Yet with the House scheduled to leave Washington on Thursday for a 12-day recess, Johnson has faced increasing pressure from rank-and-file House members and senators of both parties to bring the shutdown to an end.

Thune has rejected Johnson’s calls for changes to the plan they both endorsed weeks ago, and which the Senate has passed twice only to see it languish in the House.

“The administration made it very clear that they wanted and expected that hopefully to be picked up and passed by the House,” he told reporters Tuesday. “Well, that was 27 days ago.”

The dispute has shifted the spotlight from Democrats’ role in forcing the shutdown to the GOP’s internal disputes about how to end it.

“The Department of Homeland Security remains unfunded because of House Republicans and the inability of Republicans, House and Senate, to get their act together,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the minority leader.

In its memo, the White House added to the pressure by warning that the administration was running out of money that it had tapped to pay Homeland Security employees during the shutdown at Trump’s direction.

“The administration will be unable to pay all DHS personnel beginning in May,” it wrote, warning that such a lapse would “unleash havoc on air travel” and require Secret Service agents and the Coast Guard to work without pay.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Michael Gold/Kenny Holston
c. 2026 The New York Times Company

The post White House Urges House To Quickly Fund DHS appeared first on GV Wire.