beerpos-postgres-db-pgweb.dokhix.easypanel.host –

Republican senators are considering a bipartisan deal to restore funding to most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would initially exclude money for arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants, according to media reports.

Under the potential agreement, Republicans would accede to Democratic demands to restore funding to all parts of the department except for those involved in immigration enforcement operations, according to Politico and the Associated Press. The GOP would then move to pay for those enforcement operations using the budget reconciliation process, in which they can address spending and revenue issues without relying on votes from Democrats.

The agreement gained momentum after a Monday evening meeting at the White House between Donald Trump and Republican senators. “The discussions have been very positive and productive, and hopefully headed in the right direction,” John Thune, the Senate majority leader, said afterwards, according to the AP.

The DHS has been partly shut down since mid-February, after Senate Democrats blocked long-term funding for the department because it did not include a host of new guardrails on immigration enforcement operations they demanded after federal agents shot dead two US citizens in Minneapolis.

Lines at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints have grown increasingly long at several airports across the country, as employees of the DHS subagency go weeks without pay.

On Monday, Trump ordered agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to support the TSA at several airports, ostensibly to address the congestion.

Democrats have objected to the agency’s tactics, but the shutdown has not affected their operations, because Republicans allocated ICE tens of billions of dollars in funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year.

Among the demands laid out by the minority party in the DHS negotiations are a requirement that immigration agents obtain judicial warrants before entering private property and wear identification, cease wearing masks and adhere to a stronger use of force policy.

The potential bipartisan deal would allow funding for Customs and Border Protection, and Homeland Security Investigations, which is under ICE. According to the AP, both agencies would face new rules requiring that agents not be diverted from their regular roles to conduct deportations.

Some of Democrats’s demands would also be addressed, including the wearing of identification and body cameras.