Congress returns to a DHS funding standoff, new budget battles and a looming surveillance deadline

Congress returns Monday from a two‑week recess to a Homeland Security funding stalemate now in its 55th day, a Senate‑passed workaround awaiting House action, and a packed agenda that stretches from the next federal budget to a fast‑approaching surveillance deadline.

The Department of Homeland Security has operated 55 days without core funding — the longest government shutdown by far in U.S. history, according to the account — as negotiations collapsed over conditions Democrats want to attach to annual appropriations for immigration enforcement.

Republican leaders have concluded their path to reopening most of DHS is to strip Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection funding from the department’s bill. That legislation has cleared the Senate and needs only the House’s approval to reach the president’s desk.

Republicans then plan to use a party‑line budget reconciliation bill to direct significant funding to ICE and CBP, not only for the current fiscal year but for years ahead. Unlike other struggling DHS agencies, ICE and CBP have remained unaffected by the shutdown of DHS.

Using budget reconciliation as a vehicle to provide annual appropriations funding is described as an unconventional and risky maneuver. President Donald Trump wants the legislation on his desk by June 1, and Republicans will first need to craft and pass a budget resolution — the blueprint for the reconciliation bill — before taking up the measure itself.

Senate Republican leaders are meeting over the weekend and could release the text of the budget resolution as soon as next week. Beyond ending the DHS impasse and funding the department through the rest of fiscal 2026, House lawmakers are also moving into fiscal 2027 spending talks.

With less than six months before the next fiscal year begins, the White House has sent Congress a $2.1 trillion budget request that will serve as a starting point for negotiations, though lawmakers typically make significant changes. The House Budget Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on the president’s proposal.

Separately, House Appropriations subcommittees plan roughly a dozen hearings next week to hear agency requests, with officials from the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security scheduled to appear.

While those hearings proceed, Democratic leaders in both chambers plan to again force votes on resolutions aimed at halting the Trump administration’s ongoing military activities in Iran, which Congress never authorized. Republicans in the House and Senate voted down separate War Powers resolutions in early March.

Democrats are hoping that the drawn‑out conflict’s effects on gas prices and the stock market will persuade enough Republicans to join them in curbing the president’s power. Another deadline looms on April 20, when a key National Security Agency surveillance authority is set to expire.

Lawmakers remain sharply divided over whether to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as is or to add safeguards to better protect Americans’ privacy. On paper, Section 702 allows warrantless electronic surveillance of foreign nationals under suspicion, but in practice the electronic data of American citizens — including emails, text messages, and phone calls — are routinely collected as well.

With a DHS reopening strategy in flux, new budget blueprints in the works, and high‑stakes votes pending on war powers and surveillance, Congress faces weeks of fast‑moving negotiations that will determine near‑term funding and longer‑term policy fights.