What did Democrats ‘win’ in the DHS shutdown?

Published April 8, 2026 6:00am ET



Last week, the top Republican leaders on Capitol Hill released a joint statement — quite possibly having been told in no uncertain terms by the White House that the internecine fighting and finger-pointing over an unresolved Department of Homeland Security funding fight needed to cease immediately.

The new agreement was greeted with consternation among many rank-and-file House Republicans, who are livid at the Senate for unanimously waving through a bill that funds most of the homeland security apparatus, excluding Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. After the upper chamber did so and then left town, the House GOP responded by passing a two-month stopgap funding bill that didn’t exclude immigration enforcement. Then it also left town.

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