Republicans propose bill to fund Iran war amid fight over DHS shutdown

Party intends to craft bill using reconciliation procedure, which will allow it to circumvent Senate filibuster
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Senate Republicans on Wednesday announced plans to begin a unilateral push for legislation that may include funding for Donald Trump’s war with Iran and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), while also including elements of a voter ID bill that is a priority of the party’s right wing.

The Senate budget committee chair, Lindsey Graham, announced that, for the second time since Trump returned to the White House, the party intends to craft a bill using the reconciliation procedure, which will allow it to circumvent the Senate filibuster and thus pass with only Republican votes.

“I also think we have many opportunities to improve voter integrity through reconciliation,” Graham wrote.

A second reconciliation bill has been discussed for months in the Capitol, after Republicans last year used the procedure to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which funded Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, instituted an array of tax cuts and made major changes to eligibility for Medicaid.

Graham’s announcement came the day after John Thune, the Senate majority leader, made a proposal to Democrats to restart funding to most of the DHS and its subagencies, with the exception of ICE.

But the proposal would exclude many of the reforms the minority has demanded in response to the deaths of two US citizens at the hands of agents conducting an intensive immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis.

It also would not stop Republicans from reauthorizing funding to ICE through the reconciliation procedure.

The Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, told reporters on Monday that his party would send a counteroffer to Republicans.

A spokesman for Thune said on Tuesday that no offer had yet been received.

The compromise offers the chance to resolve the lengthy TSA lines that have snaked through major airports in recent days, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta international airport and George Bush intercontinental airport in Houston.

On Monday, ICE agents deployed by Trump to address the congestion began appearing at certain terminals.

But some Democrats are reticent to accept any deal that would see them give up leverage to force reforms on ICE and other agencies involved in Trump’s mass deportation push.

Among the party’s demands are an end to agents wearing masks, a requirement they display ID and adhere to a use of force policy, and seek judicial warrants before entering private property.

“Just as Democrats have been very clear, we will immediately fund TSA, Fema, Coast Guard, and CISA while talks continue on ICE and border patrol.

We’ve also made very clear that if we are talking about funding any part of ICE or CBP, we absolutely must take some key steps to rein them in,” Senator Patty Murray, the top Democratic appropriator, said on Monday.

“The current Republican offer in front of us does not do that.”
The partial shutdown has not affected ICE’s involvement in Trump’s immigration crackdown, because the agency’s deportation operations received tens of billions of dollars in funding under the OBBBA.

The Utah senator Mike Lee acknowledged that there was no way to get the measure passed under the reconciliation procedure, which requires bills address only spending, revenue and the debt limit.

Meanwhile, Republican controls the House of Representatives by a mere one seat, with three seats vacant, allowing any objectors to Trump’s war with Iran to wield outsize power over the bill.

Ha Nguyen McNeill, the acting administrator of the TSA, said that her agency’s employees had missed $1bn in paychecks because of the shutdown.

“Many in our workforce have missed bill payments, received eviction notices, had their cars repossessed and utilities shut off, lost their childcare, defaulted on loans, damaged their credit line and drained their retirement savings,” she said.

“Some are sleeping in their cars, selling their blood and plasma and taking on second jobs to make ends meet.”
Before this most recent shutdown, only 4% of TSA employees would not report to work.

Now, McNeill said that “multiple major airports are experiencing days where 40% to 50% of their staff are calling out” because they cannot afford to work without pay.

“We see images of ICE agents standing around or walking through terminals doing nothing to reduce the lines at security checkpoints, while TSA personnel continue to do their jobs without pay because Republicans refuse to vote for legislation to fund TSA,” Thompson said.