IFPTE Urges House of Representatives to Approve Bipartisan Senate-Passed Homeland Security Funding, End Partial Shutdown
With over 250,000 civilian federal employees at the Department of Homeland Security about to go one month without receiving pay due to a lapse in funding that started on February 14, IFPTE requested that Members of the House of Representatives pass a Homeland Security appropriations bill that has been unanimously passed by the Senate overnight. The Senate passed the funding bill overnight in the early hours of Friday, March 27, with unanimous bipartisan support, and excluded funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol (USBP) enforcement until Congress can agree on immigration enforcement reforms.
Unfortunately, the Senate-passed version of the bill, Senate Amendment to H.R. 7147, the “Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2026,” never made it out of the House Rules Committee. After a tense and charged two-hour Rules Committee hearing to bring the Senate-passed bill to the House floor, the Republican majority of the House Rules Committee agreed on a party-line basis to allow a version of the Homeland Security bill, one that does not have bipartisan support in the Senate, to be brought to the House floor for quick passage late on Friday night and into early Saturday morning. The House bill, which is the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment to H.R. 7147 and includes funding for ICE and USBP, passed on a party-line vote. Because the bill is different from the Senate version and both the House and Senate left D.C. for a two-week period in their home districts and states, the Homeland Security shutdown will continue.
IFPTE’s letter reminded Congress that, “Even as TSA employees are paid under an extraordinary Executive Order to provide paychecks without appropriated funds [which was signed by the President as it became clear that House Republican leadership would refuse considering the bipartisan Senate-passed bill], there are still over 200,000 federal workers across the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the U.S. Coast Guard, and other DHS agencies whose pay is funded by the Homeland Security appropriations bill. Many of those DHS employees are working while working without two paychecks and counting. All federal workers who have gone without pay are under a great deal of stress, as are their families. The loss of pay has economic reverberations in the communities where these workers live.”
IFPTE will continue to advocate for the passage of the Homeland Security appropriations bill, the last remaining fiscal year 2026 bill that has not been passed, as soon as possible, with language that provides accountability for immigration enforcement agencies that urgently need Congressional oversight and reform.