Senate Democrats unveiled a counteroffer Wednesday on legislation to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, and Republicans rejected it within hours, calling it a collection of demands both sides already knew were dead on arrival. A Senate vote to end the partial shutdown failed again the same day, with nearly all Democrats voting no, as the New York Post reported.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune did not mince words. The South Dakota Republican told reporters the Democratic proposal was "not even close to being real" and that "it includes things that they know are nonstarters."
The standoff means thousands of federal workers could miss yet another paycheck on Friday. TSA screeners are preparing to miss a third paycheck since the shutdown began last month, and the agency's acting administrator told lawmakers that more than 480 airport screeners have already quit. This is what happens when the Senate minority decides to hold an entire cabinet department hostage over policy riders it knows will never pass.
The broad outlines of a potential compromise had been taking shape for weeks. Under the concept, Republicans would fund most of DHS through regular legislation while carving out ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations, the agency's deportation wing, to be funded separately through budget reconciliation, which is not subject to the Senate's 60-vote filibuster threshold. The idea would have reopened agencies like TSA and FEMA while sidestepping the ICE fight entirely.
President Trump signaled displeasure with even that arrangement on Tuesday, telling reporters, "I'm pretty much not happy with it." But the proposal at least represented a framework both sides could discuss.
Then came Wednesday's Democratic counteroffer, and with it, according to Republicans, a fresh set of demands that blew up whatever progress had been made. Democrats insisted on reforms to ICE that included banning officers from wearing masks, imposing tougher warrant requirements, protecting so-called sensitive locations from enforcement actions, and requiring officer identification and body-worn cameras. Fox News reported that Republicans called several of these demands "red lines" and that Democrats then blocked another GOP-led vote to reopen DHS.
Thune said Democrats had repeatedly walked away from targets they themselves had described as acceptable.
"I don't know how you get to a solution where they keep moving the goalposts and where, when you hit a target that they said would be acceptable, they walk away from it. That's happened multiple times, including most recently over the weekend."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saw things differently. The New York Democrat called his party's counteroffer a "reasonable, good-faith proposal" and said on the Senate floor that it would "reopen DHS, pay TSA workers, while at the same time rein in ICE with commonsense guardrails." He said the proposal "contains some of the very same asks Democrats have been talking about now for months."
A top Democratic aide familiar with the negotiations echoed that line, telling reporters, "these are not new asks." The aide said the counteroffer included "some of the same basic reforms Democrats have been discussing for months, including several that the White House has already agreed to in principle, such as officer identification, body-worn cameras, protections for sensitive locations from enforcement actions, and basic training standards."
The White House was not buying it. One official called the Democratic position flatly absurd.
"It's laughable that Democrats are now demanding more reforms to an agency they still refuse to fund. This latest stunt from the Democrats proves... they don't care their shutdown is hurting Americans."
Ryan Wrasse, Thune's spokesperson, distilled the contradiction in a post on X: "Hard to put too fine of a point on this: Democrats are demanding reforms to an agency they're unwilling to fund."
That framing cuts to the core of the Republican argument. Democrats want to impose new restrictions on ICE, an agency whose funding they are simultaneously blocking. They want body cameras, warrant requirements, and mask bans for officers they refuse to pay. It is a negotiating posture that looks less like good faith and more like an effort to extract policy concessions under the cover of a funding crisis Democrats themselves are prolonging.
This is not the first time Senate Democrats have blocked DHS funding while the consequences pile up on ordinary Americans. The pattern has repeated week after week, with Democrats voting no on procedural motions while TSA agents go without pay and airport lines stretch for hours.
The human cost of the shutdown is no longer theoretical. TSA workers last received a full paycheck on February 14. They got a partial paycheck on February 28. This week, they were bracing to miss a third.
Johnny Jones, from the American Federation of Government Employees, described the situation on a call with reporters:
"Most employees live paycheck to paycheck, so they've missed these paychecks for the last month and a half, and then before it was a month and a half again, so this is unsustainable."
Ha Nguyen McNeill, TSA's acting administrator, told lawmakers Wednesday that more than 480 airport screeners have quit since the partial shutdown began. Call-out rates surged to double digits, up from roughly 2% before the funding lapse. Some airport wait times exceeded four and a half hours. At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, lines stretched outside the building.
The shutdown has become the second-longest in U.S. history. And the people bearing its weight are not senators or White House aides. They are the screeners, the agents, the frontline workers who show up every day to keep airports running and borders secure, and who have not been paid in weeks.
Neither party is emerging unscathed in public opinion, but the numbers suggest both sides face voter frustration. A CBS-YouGov survey of 3,335 adults found that only 31% agreed the Democrats' position was worth a shutdown, while 36% said it was not. Republicans fared worse: just 23% said the GOP position was worth shutting down over, compared to 42% who said it was not.
A separate Morning Consult poll found congressional Republicans underwater by 18 percentage points in overall "net buzz", the sentiments voters have heard about either party, compared to Democrats' 13-point deficit. The numbers suggest voters are unhappy with everyone in Washington, but Republicans are absorbing more of the blame despite Democrats casting the blocking votes.
That dynamic helps explain why Democrats may feel emboldened to keep the shutdown going. If Republicans take the political hit regardless, there is little incentive for Schumer to make concessions. The question is whether voters will eventually notice who is actually voting no.
By Thursday, Senate Republicans escalated. The Washington Times reported that Republicans issued Democrats a "last and final" offer to reach a DHS funding compromise before the planned holiday recess. All Democrats except Sen. John Fetterman had voted against proceeding on Wednesday.
President Trump went further, publicly urging Republicans to eliminate the filibuster entirely. "When is 'enough, enough' for our Republican Senators... TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, and get our airports, and everything else, moving again," Trump posted. Thune acknowledged the pressure, saying, "It's just important that we try and close this down and get it done today."
Meanwhile, the earlier pattern of Democrats risking a shutdown over DHS spending has now hardened into an extended standoff with real-world consequences that grow worse by the day.
Democrats have already secured some concessions during this fight. The article notes they got body cameras deployed to ICE officers, the firing of former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and the end of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. Yet those wins have not been enough to bring them to the table on a funding deal.
In the House, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat, announced plans to negotiate a bipartisan compromise to get most DHS agencies fully funded again. Whether that effort gains traction remains to be seen, but it at least represents an acknowledgment that the Senate impasse needs a workaround.
Schumer met with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Wednesday morning before making the counteroffer, and the two reportedly insisted they were on the same page. That alignment may matter if any deal eventually requires House votes, a scenario that recalls other recent episodes where Democrats presented a united front against Republican legislation while claiming to support the underlying goal.
Thune, for his part, refused to send another counterproposal back to Democrats. "There's no point in doing that," he said. "This is retreading ground that we've been treading for weeks."
The full details of the Democratic counteroffer have not been publicly released. Schumer declined to share them. That opacity makes it difficult to evaluate the Democratic aide's claim that the proposals are not new, and equally difficult to assess Thune's charge that they are nonstarters. What is clear is that the shutdown continues, the votes to end it keep failing, and the people who screen bags and patrol borders keep working without pay.
Washington's negotiating rituals have a way of floating above the people they affect. Senators trade counteroffers and hold press conferences. Aides brief reporters on background. Spokespeople post on X. And somewhere in Atlanta, a TSA screener who hasn't been paid since Valentine's Day stands at a checkpoint wondering whether to quit or keep showing up.
Democrats say they want guardrails on ICE. Republicans say Democrats keep moving the goalposts. The White House says Democrats don't care about the Americans their shutdown is hurting. Polling says voters are frustrated with everyone.
But only one side is casting the votes that keep DHS closed. And only one side is demanding reforms to an agency it refuses to fund. That contradiction does not require a press conference to explain. It speaks for itself.
