Senate Approves Funds for Homeland Security, Minus ICE

The Senate early Friday morning approved Homeland Security funds to pay Transportation Security Administration agents and most other agencies, but not the immigration enforcement operations at the heart of the budget impasse that has jammed airports, disrupted travel, and imposed financial hardship on workers. The deal, which the Senate approved unanimously without a roll call, next goes to the House, which is expected to consider it Friday, the AP reports. "We can get at least a lot of the government opened up again and then we'll go from there," said Senate Majority Leader John Thune. "Obviously, we'll still have some work ahead of us."

• Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the outcome could have been reached weeks ago, and vowed that his party would continue fighting to ensure Trump's "rogue" immigration operation "does not get more funding without serious reform." He said the deal, approved at 2:20am Friday, was "exactly what we wanted," NBC News reports.

• With pressure mounting to resolve the 42-day stalemate over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the endgame emerged in the final hours before TSA workers miss another paycheck Friday. President Trump said he would sign an order to immediately pay the TSA agents, saying he wanted to quickly stop the "Chaos at the Airports." The deal did not include any of the restraints Democrats have demanded as they sought to rein in Trump's mass deportation agenda.
• Senators worked through the night on the deal that would fund much of the rest of the department, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, and TSA, but without funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Customs was funded, but Border Protection was not.
• The package puts no new limits on immigration enforcement, which has remained largely uninterrupted by the shutdown. The GOP's big tax cuts bill that Trump signed into law last year funneled billions in extra funds to DHS, including $75 billion for ICE operations, ensuring the immigration officers are still being paid despite the lapse.

• Next steps in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson holds a slim GOP majority, are uncertain. Passage will almost certainly require bipartisan support. Conservative Republicans have panned their own party's proposals, demanding full funding for immigration operations. Many have vowed to ensure ICE has the resources it needs in the next budget package to carry out Trump's agenda. Thune expressed hope that Trump would sign the deal if it passed the House, the Hill reports. "I never speak for him but he understood where we were, where the Democrats were," he said.
• Trump had largely left the issue to Congress, but warned he was ready to take action, threatening to send the National Guard to airports in addition to his deployment of ICE agents who are now checking travelers' IDs.
• The White House had floated the extraordinary move of invoking a national emergency to pay the TSA agents, a politically and legally fraught approach. If the Senate package is approved by the House and signed into law, the action Trump announced to pay TSA agents may be temporary or unneeded.
• The funding shutdown has resulted in travel delays and even warnings of airport closures as TSA workers missing paychecks stop coming to work.