Stalemate over Homeland Security funding raises risk of partial government shutdown
Dispute over border management is what's holding up negotiations, sources say
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}House and Senate appropriations negotiators have yet to release a deal on the second slate of funding bills, including that for the Department of Homeland Security, which is the main issue dragging out discussions, sources told Fox News Digital on Monday.
Bills to fund the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, and Health and Human Services, as well as Financial Services and General Government, the legislative branch, and State and Foreign Operations are due on March 22. However, a dispute has emerged between Republican negotiators and the Biden White House.
President Biden has called House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., left, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for a White House meeting. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images | Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images | Craig Hudson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Three sources, including a senior House leadership aide, confirmed to Fox News Digital that text for the six bills would not be released Monday as was previously expected.
The disagreement between the Biden administration and Republicans negotiating the funding bills is over border management provisions in the DHS funding bill, per a Senate Republican leadership source.
President Biden speaks with a member of the Border Patrol as they walk along the U.S.-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, on Jan. 8, 2023. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Image)
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}According to the source, five of the measures are "essentially done." The DHS bill has delayed the entire process, however.
From right, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., and the late Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., conduct the Senate Appropriations Committee markup of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024 and the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on June 22, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images)
With no definite release date for the texts of the various funding bills, congressional negotiators run the risk of failing to pass the package before the Friday deadline. This would trigger a partial government shutdown, excluding the portions of the government that were funded in the last slate of bills.
On March 8, the first group of funding bills was passed by the Senate. The $460 billion package included provisions for Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Justice and Commerce departments, Energy and Water Development, the Department of Interior, and Transportation and Housing.
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The bills are making their way through Congress as the national debt recently surpassed $34 trillion and is nearing $34.5 trillion.
The funding deadlines of March 8 and 22 were agreed to via a continuing resolution late last month, which became the fourth such stopgap measure since the original Sept. 30 deadline for fiscal 2024 appropriations.