White House, Johnson close out Homeland Security negotiations holding up final funding deal

Top negotiators have locked in a bipartisan deal on full-year funding for the Department of Homeland Security, allowing congressional leaders to put the finishing touches on a broader spending agreement in the coming days, according to two sources familiar with the talks. A short stopgap funding patch could still be needed to head off a partial government shutdown at midnight Saturday morning for the Pentagon and many key non-defense agencies, since bill text is likely to take at least another day to finalize. The fiscal 2024 accord on Homeland Security cash follows days of harried negotiations and a last-minute intervention from the White House over the weekend, with Biden administration officials rejecting a fallback plan that would have saddled the agency with stagnant funding through September. The White House had insisted that a year-long stopgap for DHS would prove detrimental to border security efforts, in anticipation of a migration surge this spring. The Homeland Security spending measure joins five other bills needed to fund about 70 percent of the federal government, including the military and major health programs, before a partial government shutdown hits Saturday after midnight. The eleventh hour negotiations over DHS, the most contentious of the spending bills, has pushed Congress perilously closer to that deadline. Legislative text of the six-bill funding bundle is now expected late Tuesday or Wednesday, potentially teeing up a House vote on Friday at the earliest, if Speaker Mike Johnson adheres to a pledge to give Republicans 72 hours to review legislative text. Once the package passes the House, Senate leaders will need consent from all 100 senators to ensure speedy votes on the spending package. That task is already expected to be politically tricky, with Republicans likely to demand a swath of amendment votes on issues ranging from immigration to earmarks. Besides budgets for the military and DHS, the package congressional leaders are aiming to clear for Biden’s signature in the coming days covers funding for health, education, housing and labor programs. It also includes funding for foreign operations, the IRS, congressional operations and the District of Columbia, along with the departments of State and Treasury. Lead Art: President Joe Biden walks with Jason Owens (left), the Chief of U.S. Border Patrol, as he visits the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas, on Feb. 29, 2024. | Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images A Border Patrol agent walks along a border wall separating Tijuana, Mexico, from San Diego. 2 DAYS AGO Homeland security battle pushes much of government perilously close to Saturday shutdown The prolonged impasse over border funding leaves little room for delay in a Capitol where things can easily go off the rails. By CAITLIN EMMA and JENNIFER SCHOLTES03/18/2024, 2:21PM ET President Joe Biden’s late-stage bid to save the Department of Homeland Security from a flat budget is pushing Congress perilously close to a Saturday shutdown of most of the federal government. Heading into the November election, Biden is under increasing pressure to counter Republican attacks that his administration is failing to address spiking migration at the southern border, particularly as officials anticipate a spring surge with warmer weather. The Homeland Security spending bill likely represents the last chance for congressional leaders and the White House to boost budgets for border security and related matters following last month's collapse of a bipartisan immigration deal in the Senate. Which means the stakes are high for the current impasse over the DHS budget as funding for more than 70 percent of the federal government is set to expire at week's end, including military and foreign operations spending, plus federal health, education and housing programs. "This is obviously an administration that is hopeful," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday afternoon, "and hopes that Congress gets to the bottom of this and gets to a point where we keep the government open." Not ruling out a funding lapse, Jean-Pierre added that it is Congress' "basic duty" to adequately fund federal efforts. "As you know, the shutdown is set for this coming Friday," she said. "And we want to certainly get to a place where DHS has what it needs to continue the operational pace that they've been having." Top lawmakers have considered endgame negotiations on the Homeland Security funding bill as perhaps the most troublesome in the entire package ever since Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan border and foreign aid deal. Thanks to funding limits set by last summer’s bipartisan debt package, Congress is working with very little extra money and competing priorities when it comes to border personnel, security, humanitarian needs and more. Dems, GOP rage as border deal collapses SharePlay Video “Republicans had their chance to write immigration policy. They threw it out the window. So we're not going to write immigration policy on an appropriations bill,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), leader of the subpanel in charge of Homeland Security funding, said last week. Thanks to an eleventh-hour push by the White House, negotiators are now speeding to save DHS from stagnant funding through the rest of the fiscal year. Lawmakers had initially accepted that fallback option in the interest of closing out talks on the most contentious spending bill in Congress’ second six-bill bundle to fund the government. But the Biden administration pushed back, arguing that a stopgap funding patch would hamstring agencies already struggling to address migration on the southern border. The prolonged talks mean that House and Senate votes on any spending agreement will likely get pushed to Friday — leaving little room for delay in both chambers where things can easily go off the rails, right up against the partial shutdown deadline. Besides the DHS funding bill, the five other measures in the package have been finalized. But the entire spending package is expected to hinge on the fate of the border and immigration negotiations, since it is politically unworkable to try to pass the homeland security bill on its own once the military and key non-defense agencies are fully funded. Further increasing pressure on top lawmakers to wrap up funding negotiations: Both the House and Senate are scheduled to adjourn on Friday for a two-week recess. Conservatives complain that aligning the government shutdown deadline with that scheduled departure is a typical ploy to force agreement on a massive funding package that will be unveiled late. “It shouldn’t be lost on anyone,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), “that they set this up in that way to create this sort of contrived emergency, against which they want the ability to message against anyone expressing concerns about the bill of desiring a shutdown, which is completely disingenuous and wildly unprofessional.” For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.