US House Republicans on Friday rejected a bipartisan Senate bill aimed at ending the weeks-long partial government shutdown, which has forced thousands of airport security officers to work without pay, exacerbating the ongoing crisis. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the Senate bill, passed unanimously early Friday, as a "joke" and stated that Republicans would introduce their own legislation to fully fund the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

However, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asserted that such a bill would be "dead on arrival." The Senate's bill, approved in a rare overnight vote, would have funded most of the Department of Homeland Security, including TSA and the US Coast Guard, but excluded ICE as well as parts of CBP. Democrats have refused to fund those agencies without changes to immigration enforcement practices, highlighting deep political divisions.

With Congress still deadlocked, President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive action to pay TSA staff who have been working without pay since mid-February. In the memo authorizing the payments, Trump claimed that "America's air travel system has reached its breaking point" and "determined that these circumstances constitute an emergency situation compromising the Nation's security." Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Friday that TSA workers "should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday," though this temporary measure does not resolve the broader funding impasse.

ICE and CBP are at the core of the now 42-day funding fight, as Congressional Democrats initially blocked funds in response to President Donald Trump's massive and chaotic deployment of armed and masked federal agents almost exclusively to Democratic-run cities. The aggressive approach of ICE and CBP deployments, combined with the perceived immunity enjoyed by those agents, has led to numerous violent confrontations with citizens, including the shooting deaths of two US citizens by ICE agents in January—one unarmed and another legally carrying a firearm—during altercations related to immigration arrests.

Previously, Democrats had offered to fund various agencies individually to avoid a prolonged funding battle, but Trump allegedly ordered Congressional Republicans to refuse the move. Despite complaining about Democrats' tactics, Trump purportedly insists on total funding and told Republicans that no bills should be considered before passage of his so-called Save America Act—a controversial new bill that Republicans and the president claim will introduce "voting security measures" by requiring voters to show a passport or birth certificate to vote. Democrats have blasted the initiative as a cheap attempt to disenfranchise voters, further illustrating the regime's internal conflicts and policy failures.

Source: www.dw.com