The US House of Representatives has passed a stopgap funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after Republicans rejected a bipartisan Senate compromise, prolonging a budget standoff that has disrupted air travel. The measure, which would fund the DHS in full for eight weeks, was approved by 213 votes to 203 late on Friday.
The Senate had earlier passed a deal that excluded money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the border patrol, prompting House Speaker Mike Johnson to call it a “joke” and introduce competing legislation to fully fund Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staff, immigration agents and border patrol personnel. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the House measure “locks in the status quo” and is “dead on arrival” in the Senate, adding that Democrats would not give a “blank check” to Trump’s “lawless and deadly immigration militia”.
The standoff has left thousands of TSA officers, who screen passengers, baggage and cargo, without pay since mid-February, causing crushing delays at airports. At Houston’s international airport, security lines stretched far into the distance and staff handed out bottles of water, according to an Agence France-Presse reporter. The White House said President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Friday ordering his administration to resolve the “unprecedented emergency situation” and find funds to pay TSA salaries. The DHS posted on X that officers “should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30”.
The dispute centres on Democratic demands for reforms to ICE, which faces nationwide criticism over its aggressive tactics. The Senate’s version would have funded the TSA, US Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) for 2026, but not ICE or the border patrol, which received substantial extra funding from the Republican-controlled Congress in 2025. Johnson said Trump “understands exactly what we’re doing and why, and he supports it”.
Both chambers must pass the same version of the bill before it can reach the president’s desk. The House passed its measure just before beginning a two-week break, with the Senate also due to recess, potentially extending the pain for travellers and DHS workers. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said: “I have never been more disgusted by the failure of elected leadership in my life. Though TSA officers will be paid, Fema workers, coast guard, CISA and other DHS employees are waiting on their back pay.”
