GOP leaders declare path to end DHS shutdown — but enormous hurdles remain

By Sarah Ferris, Aileen Graef, CNN

(CNN) — Days after a messy intra-party blowup, President Donald Trump and GOP leaders are projecting unity on a plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security amid the longest-ever partial government shutdown.

But it’s not yet clear how long it will take to restore funding since the plan is nowhere near close to landing on Trump’s desk. While the Senate plans to take its initial step as soon as Thursday morning, the House hasn’t yet said when it will make its moves — and multiple House GOP sources told CNN that is highly unlikely to happen in the next few days, with many Republicans still eager for clear assurances that the remaining immigration funding will be delivered and still wary of the precedent of letting Democrats successfully defund parts of an agency they dislike.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson issued a statement on Wednesday declaring an ambitious two-track plan to end the DHS shutdown and pursue a second Trump megabill, after the passage last summer of the president’s tax and border-focused “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

That joint statement, however, does not address a major remaining hurdle — when exactly the House will be willing to pass the Senate plan that they’ve detested from the start, putting the GOP’s fragile unity to the test. And any plan will be extraordinarily difficult for GOP leaders to pull off within Congress’s narrow margins and just months from a midterm election.

In their statement, Thune and Johnson effectively acknowledge that Congress will need to accept a partial reopening of DHS, which the Senate GOP leader had accepted last week to the disdain of his House GOP colleagues.

But it also comes with a sweetener for Johnson and House conservatives — a public promise for a second Trump megabill to secure that extra immigration funding. The statement from the Hill GOP leaders came shortly after Trump issued a similar statement demanding that bill by June 1.

Republicans will pursue what’s known as reconciliation, a highly complex maneuver that must abide by strict Senate budgetary rules, but allows them to bypass that chamber’s filibuster and pass a bill without Democratic votes.

Thune had already suggested that Senate Republicans could pursue this tricky route to secure ICE funding when he agreed to pass a partial DHS funding bill with Democratic support. House Republicans, however, quickly rejected that plan, criticizing the lack of immigration enforcement funding.

Now, House Republicans who have been long eager to use the complex procedural tool again have forced both Thune and Trump to go on the record supporting it.

Lawmakers have been under intense pressure to return from their recess and pass a bill, with TMZ publishing photographs of members leaving Washington, on vacation, at family events, back in their home states and on official congressional trips abroad. On Wednesday, the tabloid published photos of a group of members of Congress on a trip in Scotland.

A spokesperson for GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, one of the lawmakers seen in the photos, said in a statement that the congressman joined other members “on a delegation that was pre-approved by the House Ethics Committee months ago. The trip focuses on economic development, foreign partnerships, and business engagement, including meetings with members of Parliament and other international officials.” Congressional delegation trips to other countries are a common part of lawmakers’ duties in both the House and Senate.

GOP leaders in both chambers know that so-called Reconciliation 2.0 will be extremely difficult: Even if there is an effort to keep it relatively narrowly focused, members will try to load up that bill with all their election-year priorities, including policy wish-lists like voter ID that are not technically allowed in the budget-focused bill.

Republicans have also seriously talked about using the reconciliation maneuver to fund Trump’s war in Iran since Democrats have no interest in supporting it. It’s not yet clear if the Iran money — which hasn’t been formally requested yet — can pass in this measure before June 1.

In his statement, Trump said he is working with Republican congressional leaders to fund ICE and border patrol with a second reconciliation bill he has demanded be ready for his signature by the remarkably quick deadline.

Trump slammed Democrats for not funding ICE until key demands on reforms were met, and the president said he is planning to work around Democrats by using the reconciliation process to provide money for the agency.

“That’s why we are going forward to fund our incredible ICE Agents and Border Patrol through a process that doesn’t need Radical Left Democrat votes, and bypasses the Senate Filibuster (which should be repealed, IMMEDIATELY!), working in close conjunction with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Leader John Thune,” he said in a lengthy Truth Social post.

Trump’s directive to the party for a new GOP megabill comes after the president mostly remained on the sidelines of Congress’ deepening DHS shutdown crisis. Now, he’s hoping to put a potential end in sight for the shutdown — and trying to force the GOP to unite behind a solution after days of ugly intraparty sniping.

The president is tossing a new demand to Congress at a rough time: GOP lawmakers are deeply divided on strategy and agenda, and Johnson has only a single vote to lose in the House. They also know members will clamor to get their own priorities tacked onto the megabill. Many lawmakers in both chambers, including in leadership, believe this will be the only way to pass Trump’s demands for more Iran funding, as well — which will be another huge lift this spring.

GOP leaders are already trying to brand the bill as a “skinny” reconciliation bill to prevent their members from overloading the bill and holding up its passage. But ultraconservatives are eager to use the tool for debt reduction — and may demand that cuts be included in any package.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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CNN’s Manu Raju, Lauren Fox and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.