US House Republicans are rejecting a Senate-passed Bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a revolt that risks delaying a resolution to the funding impasse now in its 42nd day that has created long queues at many of America’s airports.
“This gambit that was done last night is a joke,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Friday.
Republicans are angry that the Bill passed early on Friday by the Senate does not fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.
Mr Johnson said that instead House Republicans would seek to pass a Bill that would fund the entire department at current levels until May 22.
Democrats refused to fund those departments without changes to immigration enforcement practices.
“We’re going to do something different,” Mr Johnson said, challenging the Senate to take up the House’s continuing resolution on Monday, assuming it does pass the House, which is uncertain.
Senators have already left Washington after acting in the early hours to end the partial shutdown.
With pressure mounting this week to resolve the stalemate, the endgame appeared to emerge just before TSA workers were set to miss another pay day.
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would sign an order to pay the TSA agents immediately, saying he wanted to stop the “chaos at the airports”.
A deal that was subsequently reached hours later did not include any of the restraints Democrats have demanded as they sought to rein in the Republican president’s mass deportation agenda.
“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 he vowed that his party would continue fighting to ensure Mr Trump’s “rogue” immigration operation “does not get more funding without serious reform”.
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.
While Democrats were successful in blocking more funding for Ice and the Border Patrol, they did not get the new limits on immigration enforcement they were demanding.
Immigration enforcement has remained largely uninterrupted by the shutdown because the Republicans’ big tax cuts bill that Mr Trump signed into law last year funnelled billions of dollars in extra funds to DHS, including 75 billion dollars (£56.5 billion) for Ice operations.
Democrats argued the Republican proposals have not gone far enough at putting guardrails on officers from Ice, Customs and Border Protection, and other federal agencies that are engaged in the immigration sweeps, particularly after the deaths of two Americans protesting against the actions in Minneapolis.
They want federal agents to wear identification, remove their face masks and refrain from conducting raids around schools, churches or other sensitive places.
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Democrats have also pushed for an end of administrative warrants, insisting that judges sign off before agents search people’s homes or private spaces – something new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said he is open to considering.
Mr 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 travellers’ IDs.
