GOP cracks in Senate begin to show in DHS shutdown fight

Cracks are beginning to show in the Senate GOP’s unity as the Department of Homeland Security shutdown stretches into its 38th day, as some Republicans worry trying to pin the blame on Democrats won’t produce a deal, and could politically boomerang back on their own party.

Images of huge chaotic lines at major airports in Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans and New York City caused by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers calling in sick is rattling Republican senators who don’t see an end in sight given the hard lines taken by both the White House and Senate Democrats during the funding stalemate.

While Republicans feel the shutdown was forced by Democrats, they also know their party owns the White House and both majorities in Congress, and could suffer the blame – particularly amid the war with Iran that is already stoking political controversy.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a prominent conservative and an influential voice in the Senate GOP conference, has pushed colleagues to consider breaking up the Homeland Security appropriations bill to fund and reopen TSA and other critical agencies immediately and use the budget reconciliation process later to increase funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Cruz’s proposal to end the five-week standoff by setting aside funding for ICE and CBP and reopening TSA and other critical agencies is gaining momentum in the GOP conference.

“It is something that a lot of us have been talking about,” she said, calling it a “viable proposal.”

But it could run into severe opposition from President Trump, who has linked any deal to open parts of DHS to elections legislation opposed by Democrats: The SAVE America Act. That legislation in on the Senate floor, but would need 60 votes to advance.

Asked in a Sunday phone interview by NewsNation’s Hannah Brandt about his thoughts on funding TSA to allow negotiations on a broader DHS deal, the president was decidedly cool.

“And I don’t think any deal should be made on this until they approve save America,” he said. “Ok, so you have a scoop.”

Murkowski noted that Department of Homeland Security received more than $170 billion for immigration enforcement operations from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Republicans, passed through the budget reconciliation process last year. Most of that money went to ICE and CBP.

Murkowski said she doesn’t think Trump’s proposal floated over the weekend to send ICE officers to airports to handle security screening operations is the answer to the crisis.  

“This is not the answer for what we need to do. We need to figure out how we get DHS funded. My preference, of course, is to get all of DHS funded, get it done and behind us. But I think we all need to be looking to see if there are any [other] avenues that can gain support. We got to figure it out before [the end of] next week,” she said, citing the upcoming recess.

Cruz says Congress should move immediately to fund the parts of Homeland Security Department that it can when the nation faces a heightened risk of terrorist attack because of the military conflict with Iran, and when Americans are missing flights because of the chaos at airports.

“We’ve had four terror attacks from radical Islamic terrorists in the last two weeks. The agency charged with preventing terror attacks has been defunded because the Democrats care more about open-border radicals than actually keeping our families safe across the country,” Cruz said.

“And millions of Americans right now are facing two-, three-, four-hour waits at airports. They’re missing their planes for spring break because the Democrats refuse to pay TSA,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and other members of the GOP leadership have insisted for weeks that Democrats need to agree to fund all of the Department of Homeland Security, including ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as part of any deal.

Thune has previously slammed the Democratic calls to fund TSA, the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but not ICE and CBP – the chief immigration enforcement agencies — as a bid to “defund law enforcement.”

“You start peeling them off — what they want to do is they want to defund law enforcement. They want to defund ICE, they want to defund CBP and it strikes me that they want to peel off all things they want to fund and not deal with the things that they don’t,” Thune said Tuesday of the Democrats.

Republicans objected to a request for unanimous consent from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on March 11 to fund all of the Homeland Security Department except for ICE, CBP and the Homeland Security secretary’s office.

But a growing number of GOP senators don’t see any signs that Republican messaging is moving Democrats any closer to a deal to pass the Homeland Security Appropriations bill.

Cruz noted that Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the Senate Democrats’ chief deputy whip and likely success to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as majority leader, said Democrats are “serene” with the political strength of their position.

“To quote Brian Schatz, who is widely seen as the Democrat leader-in-waiting, the Democrats are positively serene about TSA not being paid,” he said.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who has publicly endorsed Cruz’s proposal to split up Homeland Security funding and address ICE and CBP funding through budget reconciliation, said the current standoff doesn’t appear to have any end in sight.

“I don’t think we’re even close,” Kennedy told reporters Sunday.

Other Republican senators confirmed on Sunday that there doesn’t appear to be a clear path to reaching a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security along with ICE and CBP anytime soon.

The Senate is scheduled to take a two-week Easter recess starting on March 28 and some GOP senators are calling for the chamber to stay in session while Homeland Security remains unfunded.

Republican negotiators reached out to Democrats to set up a meeting with White House border czar Tom Homan at the Capitol Saturday but the meeting was cancelled shortly before it was to happen.

GOP sources familiar with the logistics said that Democrats said they weren’t ready to move forward.

A Democratic source familiar with the scheduling conflict said Democrats “proposed meeting later” to have the most constructive discussion possible.

A Democratic senator who requested anonymity said that internal polling shows that Republicans are getting most of the blame for the TSA shutdown and other problems caused by the Homeland Security shutdown because they control the White House and both chambers of Congress.  

Some GOP senators have been lukewarm on the proposal to deploy ICE agents to airports to handle security lines.

“It depends on whether or not logistically you can get these guys into those places and get them up to speed on it,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). “If this thing were to go on for an extended period of time, would it maybe [be] a necessity? The answer to that is, yeah, it could be a necessity.

“I hope it wouldn’t come to that,” he said. “We’ve got to open this back up again.”

Some Republican lawmakers are taking a closer look at possibly accepting a key Democratic demand for reforming ICE — requiring federal immigration officers to obtain judicial warrants before entering a premises for making an apprehension.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), Trump’s pick to serve as the next secretary of Homeland Security, has told some colleagues that he would be willing to require judicial warrants for immigration agents to enter private homes.

Republican leaders have consistently dismissed that demand in public, as well as the Democrats’ demand to prohibit federal immigration officers from wearing masks.

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