House Republicans object to Senate’s partial DHS funding bill, push 8-week stopgap

House Republicans opposed to the Senate-passed partial Department of Homeland Security funding bill are going to try to pass an eight-week stopgap measure that would fund the entire department.

The move risks prolonging the DHS shutdown that began on Feb. 14 as Senate Democrats warn they will not back the status quo without changes to immigration enforcement policy.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, said if the Senate does not go along with the stopgap plan, Transportation Security Administration agents will still get paid because of the executive order the president announced on Thursday.

“The Office of Management Budget is working through that to make sure that that happens,” the speaker said Friday. “And we will reduce the lines and the weights at the airlines.”

Mr. Johnson said his conference does not support the Senate’s “gambit” to strip funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and much of Customs and Border Protection from the DHS appropriations bill. He called it a “joke.”

“The Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” he said. “We are going to deport dangerous, criminal illegal aliens, because it is a basic function of the government.”

Mr. Johnson announced the plan to reporters after a nearly two-hour conference call with House Republicans and a phone call with President Trump.

The president “understands exactly what we’re doing and why, and he supports that,” the speaker said.

The House vote on the stopgap will occur “as soon as possible,” he said.

The measure must go through the Rules Committee, then the House has to adopt the procedural rule for bringing it to debate on the floor, so it would likely be late Friday or early Saturday before a final vote.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, slammed Republicans for blocking the Senate-passed bill, which his caucus is prepared to help send to Mr. Trump’s desk.

“There’s a bipartisan bill that emerged from the Senate with uniform support, and it should be brought to the floor immediately so we can pay TSA agents, so we can end the chaos at airports across the country and stop inconveniencing millions of Americans as we approach Holy Week, Passover, Palm Sunday and Easter,” he said.

The Senate passed the partial DHS funding bill by voice vote at 2:19 a.m. Friday, then adjourned for a two-week recess. The House was scheduled to observe the recess as well, but the new funding plan could delay that.

Rep. Tim Burchett, Tennessee Republican, said the Senate caved in “an attempt to get us home for a vacation.”

“I think we ought to do our job,” he said, noting he prefers to fund all of DHS.

It’s unclear if the Senate would consider returning to Washington early if the House were to pass the stopgap bill, as the measure would not get 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said a stopgap bill “that locks in the status quo is dead on arrival in the Senate, and Republicans know it.”

“We’ve been clear from day 1: Democrats will fund critical Homeland Security functions — but we will not give a blank check to Trump’s lawless and deadly immigration militia without reforms,” he said.

A Senate GOP source said the House stopgap plan will not work, citing Mr. Schumer’s comments and Senate Republicans’ numerous failed attempts in recent weeks to pass a DHS stopgap by unanimous consent, which is what Mr. Johnson suggested they do with this new bill.

The source said the “easiest way to make a law is to pass the Senate bill.”

The Senate-passed bill fully funds eight of the 10 agencies under DHS, including TSA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Coast Guard and Secret Service.

It does not include money for ICE or the border patrol functions of CBP. It does fund CBP’s customs operations.

House Democrats are largely backing the measure because it’s close to a DHS funding bill they introduced that would fund DHS except for ICE and CBP.

They had started a discharge petition earlier this month to try to force a vote on their version, which 207 of 214 House Democrats signed. The petition would have needed 218 votes to be successful.