Homeland Security funding bill sputters in Senate 

Senate negotiators are punting consideration of their full-year Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill as both sides struggle to find bipartisan agreement. 

The powerful Senate Appropriations Committee was set to consider the bill, along with four other full-year funding measures, on Thursday as it works to pass all 12 annual government funding bills.

“Over the last few weeks, we have made serious progress writing strong, bipartisan funding bills—passing seven so far out of Committee with overwhelming bipartisan support,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), head of the committee, said in a Monday statement.

“I look forward to keeping the momentum up on Thursday when we consider another four bills, and we will continue working toward a bipartisan agreement on the Homeland Security bill,” she added.

Congress has roughly two months until a late-September government shutdown deadline.

While the Senate has yet to pass any of its funding bills across the full floor, the House has so far passed five appropriations bills for fiscal 2025. But the House struggled to pass multiple other funding bills last week and began its recess a week early.

The holdup around the annual DHS funding bill comes as no surprise — it was a key sticking point in spending talks earlier this year, following the collapse of a bipartisan border deal in the winter. 

Republicans have since ramped up attacks against Democrats on the border in the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election. Within days of Vice President Harris receiving the necessary support to become her party’s nominee, the GOP-led House passed a resolution condemning her as the Biden administration’s “border czar.”