EXCLUSIVE — Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is planning to keep senators in town for the April recess if Democrats cannot reach a compromise with the White House on funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Thune said he expects to cancel his travel plans if the department, at the center of a partial government shutdown over immigration enforcement, is still shuttered by the end of next week, when the Senate is scheduled to take a two-week Easter recess.
“If that’s what it takes,” Thune said. “I can’t see us taking a break here in the next week if DHS isn’t funded.
“I just think we’ve got to fund the government. We can’t have a break like that, and continually have TSA not being paid and other government employees not being paid.”
The White House sent border czar Tom Homan to Capitol Hill on Thursday to meet with a group of Senate Republicans and Democrats, a sign that a deal may be closer at hand, more than a month into the shutdown.
But Democrats, who have refused to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement after two protesters were fatally shot in Minneapolis, have so far not budged off their demand that DHS agree to substantial reforms in exchange for their votes.
“We’ll see,” Thune said of the recess. “I think hopefully folks are starting to realize that we can’t sustain and continue this, and we need an answer and a solution, and that’s going to take … people on both sides, so those conversations are getting underway.”
Thune had plans to use the break to help Republicans prepare for the midterm elections, with recesses often used in an election year to campaign or hold fundraising events. But he signaled those trips would be pared back in light of the shutdown.
Over the last month, Thune has been to New York, California, Florida, and Texas, something he said was not his “favorite” part of being majority leader.
“All the stuff you do when you have, for better or worse, when you have this job,” Thune said.
“It never ends,” he added at another point.
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For DHS funding, the White House has agreed to a set of reforms, including increased oversight of detention facilities and the expanded use of body cameras, but Democrats say those concessions are not enough to rein in the agency and want a ban on face masks, tighter warrant requirements, and more.
Republicans have repeatedly rebuffed attempts to pass a bill that funds everything except ICE and Customs and Border Protection, which was also involved in one of the shooting deaths. Democrats similarly have dug in over Republicans’ attempts to fund the agency in its entirety.
