When Republican leaders return to Washington D.C. on Monday after a two week recess, they will face a series of Herculean tasks in the House of Representatives: uniting their razor-thin majority behind efforts to fund the Department of Homeland Security and pass an agreement on federal surveillance powers.
The Future of Funding
The Department of Homeland Security—which handles vital responsibilities such as border security, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service—has been shut down since Feb. 14, and it is unclear whether Congress will reach an agreement to fully fund it soon.
Right before leaving town for recess, the Senate passed a bill that would have funded the whole department except for border security and immigration enforcement.
The plan was to include funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection in a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would require no Democrat votes.
The House of Representatives promptly rejected this plan, as Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., described it as an effort to “defund the police.”
But days later, President Donald Trump, Speaker Johnson, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., agreed to return to this piecemeal approach of funding the agency.
The battle is not over yet. The House Freedom Caucus, a conservative faction of the House of Representatives, is agreeing to the budget reconciliation strategy, but says members want the entire department funded for the rest of Trump’s presidency via this process.
“We cannot leave ICE and CBP hanging with nothing but hopes and prayers that reconciliation 2.0 comes together,” the group wrote in an April statement.
“We can fund DHS for the rest of the President’s term to ensure Democrats can never again take our nation’s security hostage. We will never hand Democrats their ultimate prize: A defunded ICE, handcuffed CBP, and criminal aliens terrorizing our communities.”
Funding an entire department via a party line reconciliation bill would be a shock to the normal business of Congress, where the annual funding process is usually based on bipartisan compromise.
The way that Speaker Johnson handles this issue could determine the future of government funding in Washington.
Moreover, Republicans will have to come to a consensus on their next reconciliation bill, as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, have mentioned including ambitious entitlement reforms and defense spending in a potential bill.
Surveillance
Republican leaders are in for a tough legislative push next week, as they try to gather the votes to reaffirm the federal government’s controversial authority to surveil foreigners without warrants. The authority expires April 20.
Many House Republicans and Trump have argued in the past that this power is easily abused, resulting in the inadvertent surveillance of American citizens.
Trump has called for a clean extension of the authority.
Back in 2024, Congress agreed to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Several members of the House Republican conference demanded reforms to the authority, some of which were ultimately granted.
Speaker Johnson has argued that the current reforms suffice and have protected American citizens.
“Last time it was up for reauthorization, we instituted 56 substantive reforms to FISA,” Johnson has said.
“By every measure and review, those are working just as we planned. We’ve not had the abuses that were happening before those reforms,“ he said.
But some members want more safeguards included, including a warrant requirement which failed to gather enough support in a 2024 amendment vote.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., called herself a “a NO on FISA reauthorization without warrants” in an X post on Friday.
Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, similarly urged “reforms to close the loophole that allows the federal government to purchase citizens’ private data.”
If House Republican leadership holds the line and refuses to alter FISA, they may need to rely on Democrat votes to pass an extension.
Leadership can probably pass the bill via this strategy, since Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House intel committee, has given an extension of the authority his blessing.
