By Jason Hall
The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security that won’t include funding for immigration enforcement and deportation operations amid an ongoing partial shutdown, NBC News reports.
The package was approved on Friday (March 27) at 2:20 a.m. ET during a voice vote that followed a marathon session, as well as President Donald Trump announced he’ll sign an executive order telling new Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin to restart pay for Transportation Security Administration officers amid the ongoing partial shutdown in a post shared on his Truth Social account Thursday (March 26). TSA agents have gone 42 days without a full paycheck, which has resulted in a record number of call outs and wait times at major U.S. airports.
The new legislation will reportedly fund all of the Department of Homeland Security excluding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Removal Operations, as well as parts of Customs and Border Protection, which has been a key demand by the Democrats during the voting process. The reported new deal is reportedly expected to have Trump’s support, but its status in the House of Representatives was uncertain at the time of publication on Friday, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune saying, “hopefully they’ll be around, and we can get at least a lot of the government opened up again, and then we’ll go from there” when asked about the House possibly considering the package later in the day.
