House Republicans Reject Senate’s DHS Funding Deal

House Republican leadership said Friday that they will not vote on the Senate’s funding deal for the Department of Homeland Security, and the Senate has already skipped town for a two week recess.

Rep. Lisa McClain, the chair of the House Republican Conference, told NOTUS that the deal the Senate sent over Friday was “garbage” and that the House would not be voting on it.

McClain added that Republicans have an alternate plan and would discuss it on a conference call Friday.

This rejection follows more than 40 days of gridlock in the Senate over Democrats refusing to fund the department without codifying reforms to immigration agencies — specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s a battle that came to a head in the early morning hours on Friday when the Senate unanimously passed DHS funding, minus for ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection. Democrats’ many demands to change immigration enforcement policy did not make it into the bill.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said the House will work through the differences on the DHS funding bill.

“We’ve been consistent all along in the House that we want to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security,” Scalise said. “It’s why we passed a bill yesterday to do that. The Senate passed a different bill yesterday to fall short of that, so we have differences and we’re still working through how to resolve our differences.”

“What the Senate sent over was a terrible deal, made all the more insulting by the fact that they immediately skipped town to start their vacations early,” Rep. Brandon Gill told NOTUS in a text message.

The House Freedom Caucus was quick to trash the Senate’s offer Friday morning in a gaggle outside the House chamber, specifically opposing parts of it members said would not fund the division of ICE that investigates child sex trafficking.

“It is absolutely offensive to the people that we represent that the Senate could send over a bill that doesn’t fund border control and the core components of ICE,” Rep. Chip Roy said.

“I mean, could the Senate be any more lazy than to send to us a bill that doesn’t do the job and then leave town? So, we’re going to stand up and say no to that, we’re going to send back a bill that’s responsible,” Roy added.

Rep. Byron Donalds, another Freedom Caucus member, was on the same page, calling the Senate deal “nuts.”

“If the senators got to get back on their private jets to come back to D.C., so be it. Because by the way, America, most senators don’t go through TSA. They get on a PJ,” he said.

Amid congestion at airports and loss of staff and missed paychecks at the Transportation Security Administration, many House Democrats, including Reps. Becca Balint, Nanette Barragán, Gil Cisneros and Greg Landsman were prepared to vote for the deal.

“Hopefully it’s just noise,” Barragán told NOTUS in a text message of Republicans’ opposition. “I can’t vote for ICE funding since they are out of control.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday that House and Senate Democrats are aligned in supporting the deal and put blame on the GOP for the continued shutdown of DHS.