The President's Call to Return
President Trump is urging Congress to cut short its two-week recess and return to Washington to resolve the partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. Trump has "said it repeatedly" that lawmakers should come back, Leavitt told reporters, adding that the president offered to "host a big Easter dinner here at the White House if Congress will come back and fight the Democrats on this issue." The shutdown is now the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history, stretching past 40 days as lawmakers left town Friday with no funding deal in place.
The impasse centers on which agencies to fund. The Senate passed a bill early Friday morning that would fund most of DHS but exclude U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. House Republicans rejected that compromise and instead passed their own bill to fund the entire agency for 60 days. With both chambers unwilling to budge, Congress departed for recess scheduled through mid-April.
A Short-Term Fix for TSA Workers
Trump signed a memorandum Friday directing the Department of Homeland Security to work with the White House budget office to pay Transportation Security Administration workers. Some TSA officers received their first paychecks in more than a month on Monday after working without pay during the shutdown, which has lasted more than 40 days. Leavitt acknowledged the executive action is temporary, stating that "the president just can't keep signing presidential memorandums and proclamations every time Congress fails to do its job."
The measure provides only partial relief. Several other DHS agencies remain without funding, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and civilian employees in the Coast Guard. DHS Acting Assistant Security Lauren Bis said "tens of thousands of DHS employees are still not being paid" because of the shutdown.
Democrats Reject the Call Back
Democratic Senator Chris Coons said Monday that calling Congress back from recess "wouldn't solve anything," insisting the House must pass the Senate's funding deal instead. Coons noted that 100 senators agreed to the Senate bill, which excluded ICE and CBP funding following demands for reforms after two American citizens were fatally shot by federal agents during the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis earlier this year.
"There is no point in calling us all back because that was the result of a conscious choice by the Republican majority," Coons said. House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the Republican position, saying "we're not going to risk not funding the agencies that keep the American people safe" by excluding border and immigration enforcement funding.
