WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans’ two-track strategy to reopen the Department of Homeland Security has not yet ended the partial shutdown, with the Senate advancing funding legislation and the House declining to act in its latest pro forma session, according to Reuters, NBC News, BBC News, CNBC, CBS News, and USA Today. Each of the bullet points immediately below have been confirmed by at least four of the six respected sources we curated on this story.

  • House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune publicly announced a two-track approach aimed at restoring DHS funding.
  • The Senate moved the funding path forward, but the House did not take up the measure in its most recent session, leaving the shutdown unresolved.
  • The funding lapse has stretched to roughly seven weeks and is being described as the longest partial shutdown affecting DHS.
  • Airport operations have been strained by TSA staffing losses and absenteeism after weeks of disrupted pay.
  • The Senate-side framework funds most DHS functions while placing ICE and parts of CBP on a separate Republican-led track.

Additional Details Reported

What happened in Congress

Republican leaders framed the plan as a sequencing compromise: one bill to reopen most DHS operations quickly and a second legislative vehicle to address immigration-enforcement funding priorities. Coverage from NBC News and CNBC said the reconciliation component is intended to move later on a party-line basis.

Reuters reported that Senate action included clearing aside the House-passed stopgap route, while House leaders scheduled internal discussions on next steps instead of a floor vote in the same session window.

Operational fallout

BBC News, CBS News, and USA Today described continued turbulence at airports, including long screening lines tied to worker attrition and callouts during the funding gap.

Multiple outlets also noted that the White House has backed the Johnson-Thune framework, while legal and procedural questions remain about interim executive measures used to restart some TSA pay while broader DHS funding remains unsettled.

Image Attribution

Attribution: AI-generated image (Hedra.com for EOBS.biz)


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