GOP-Controlled House Rejects Homeland Security Funding Bill, Extending Partial Shutdown

The Republican-led House of Representatives has rejected the Senate-approved Homeland Security funding bill, extending the partial government shutdown even further, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

House Republicans said they would not support the package in its current form after holding a conference call to discuss it, the WSJ reported.

The news came after the Senate unanimously approved a funding package just after 2 a.m. on Friday to reopen the Department of Homeland Security after the more-than-40-day shutdown that has spawned long lines and chaos at airports across the country.

But the package faced opposition among Republicans in the House, since the deal came without money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a sticking point for Democrats in the Senate.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) reportedly told fellow Republicans that lawmakers would decline to vote on the Senate’s bill and alternatively favor DHS funding for eight weeks and back pay for the government workers affected, the WSJ reported, citing “people familiar with the matter.”

Speaking to reporters later Friday, Johnson said: “What we are going to present and what we’re going to vote for on this floor are — our rules committee is working through this right now — we’re gonna put a clean, simple continuing resolution that will go into a May 22 — it’s just a number of weeks — to allow for all those who sacrificially served the country and protect other Americans, all these agencies, 10 agencies under the Department of Homeland Security, will continue at their current funding levels to make sure that they’re protected.”

He added: “We’re gonna send that over to the Senate. And we hope that they’ll accept that. They can do it in record time just like that with the unanimous consent, they can do that as early as Monday. And in the meantime, TSA will be paid. We will have done our jobs, and we will protect the homeland because that is the most basic responsibility of the Congress, is to protect the American people. We’re not playing political games on this. We encourage some of our Democrats. Hopefully, we’ll have some of our Democrats in the house who go along with this and stop the pain that’s being forced upon these people.”

TSA agents have not been paid in weeks, forcing air travelers to wait in security lines for hours. On Thursday night, President Donald Trump announced he would sign an executive order directing newly minted DHS chief Markwayne Mullin to “immediately pay our TSA agents.”

Watch above via Fox News.

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