Trump Huddles With GOP Leaders Over Plan to Fund DHS ‘For Years’
President Donald J. Trump is ramping up pressure on Congress to cut short its scheduled recess and return to Washington, as the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security stretches on with no resolution in sight.
According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the president has made it clear that lawmakers should be back in session addressing what has now become a prolonged and dangerous funding lapse impacting key national security agencies.
“Has he told leadership that they should cancel recess and come back?” ABC News correspondent Karen Travers asked during Monday’s briefing.
“He’s said it repeatedly,” Leavitt responded, adding that Trump has even offered to personally host lawmakers at the White House if it would help break the impasse. “He’ll host a big Easter dinner here at the White House if Congress will come back and fight the Democrats on this issue, which we should do, because, again, [the] Democrat Party is in the wrong here.”
The standoff, now more than 40 days old, has exposed deep divisions in Washington, with Democrats refusing to support full funding legislation for critical DHS components such as the Transportation Security Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard—agencies widely viewed as essential to maintaining national security and safeguarding American infrastructure.
While the Senate managed to pass a limited funding bill last week—excluding key immigration enforcement arms like ICE and Customs and Border Protection—House Republicans rejected the measure, instead advancing a plan to fully fund the department for 60 days. With no agreement reached, lawmakers left the capital, leaving DHS operations partially shuttered.
Republican leadership, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, is now backing a new strategy aligned with President Trump’s broader immigration agenda.
Under the proposed approach, DHS funding would move forward on two separate tracks: border security and immigration enforcement would be secured through a budget reconciliation package—bypassing the Senate’s 60-vote threshold—while remaining agency functions would proceed through the traditional appropriations process.
“We operated under a belief that while our country is in the midst of an international armed conflict, Democrats might finally come to their senses and understand that defunding our homeland security agencies is beyond reckless and very dangerous,” Johnson and Thune said in a joint statement. “We cannot allow Democrats to any longer put the safety of the American public at risk through their open border policies, so we are taking that off the table.”
The reconciliation strategy represents a significant shift, one that could effectively neutralize Senate Democrats’ ability to block funding for border enforcement priorities. Under current rules, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer can stall DHS appropriations by maintaining party unity, given the chamber’s 60-vote requirement to advance most legislation.
President Trump has made it clear he is no longer willing to allow that dynamic to dictate national security policy.
“We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We will not allow them to hurt the families of these Great Patriots by defunding them.”
The president added that he expects legislation addressing the funding gap to reach his desk by June 1, signaling urgency from the administration as it seeks to restore full operational capacity to DHS and reinforce border security efforts.
As the stalemate drags on, the contrast between Republican calls for immediate action and Democratic resistance is becoming a defining political flashpoint—one with serious implications for national sovereignty, public safety, and the administration’s broader immigration enforcement goals.