WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader John Thune tore into the Democratic victory laps over the Department of Homeland Security partial shutdown, reminding them that they got none of the big reforms demanded.
After nearly seven weeks of the DHS funding lapse, Republicans announced a deal Wednesday to end the impasse through what was effectively the Senate plan that the GOP-led House rejected last week.
“No, we didn’t cave,” Thune (R-SD) told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” when asked about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) claims that the GOP caved.
“Ultimately, what the Democrats did, you can say this was all about for 40 days … ‘reforms,’ restrictions on ICE and on CBP agents and what they could or couldn’t do,” he added. “They got none of that. They got zero of the reforms that they were advocating for.”
Senate Democrats had leveraged the 60-vote filibuster to stymie funding for the immigration wing of DHS until Republicans agreed to make dramatic reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection.
While Republicans agreed to deploy body cameras to immigration enforcement officers, President Trump fired former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and the administration wound down Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, the GOP never agreed to the core reforms Democrats demanded.
This included reforms such as barring ICE officers from wearing masks, imposing restrictions on enforcement operations in sensitive locations, and tightening warrant requirements.
Last week, Senate Republicans agreed to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP and then return to those two agencies in a reconciliation bill that bypasses the 60-vote filibuster.
House Republicans initially rejected that approach, but agreed to it Wednesday, with Trump giving the Senate a June 1 deadline to finish the reconciliation component.
On Thursday, the Senate formally rejected the House GOP’s amended proposal to fund DHS fully for the next 60 days. The House, which is on recess, is expected to pass the first of the two-track approach to get DHS funded again.
“House Republicans own the longest government shutdown in history,” Schumer needled in a statement Thursday. “The deep division and dysfunction among House Republicans is needlessly extending the DHS shutdown and hurting federal workers who are missing another paycheck.”
Thousands of DHS workers have gone without full paychecks since Feb. 14 in the longest government shutdown in US history. The funding lapse spurred mayhem at airports with wait lines exceeding four hours in some parts of the country.
Over 500 Transportation Security Administration workers quit, and call-outs surged. Trump took executive action to pay TSA screeners last month, but key support staff in agencies throughout DHS went without pay.
“It was clear at the beginning that they didn’t want to do anything to fund either one of these agencies, because that is what their left-wing base is demanding,” Thune reflected on Democrats, referring to ICE and CBP. “They are a party now, a party of open borders and defund law enforcement.”
Thune also downplayed divisions between Republicans within the two chambers of Congress.
“What’s changed between last week and today, obviously, is, I think, a realization that of all the options that are out there, this is the best option,” he stressed.