Night of Democratic victories in the Senate: Unanimous approval of TSA funding and DHS majority leaving out ICE and part of CBP, defeat of voter ID

After 42 days, the Senate managed to take a major step toward unblocking DHS funding. After Donald Trump signed an executive order to guarantee payment to TSA workers, the Senate unanimously passed a deal that seemed like a Democratic victory. There will be money for TSA and much of the Markwayne Mullin-led department, but not for ICE and part of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The initiative went forward thanks to a last-minute late-night deal between the two sides on the eve of Easter travel. Although Republicans claimed that they managed to keep several of their demands, the feeling is that Chuck Schumer was the big winner in the arm wrestling match.

"This is exactly what we wanted"

The veteran senator for New York was quick to stress this point: "This is exactly what we wanted. This is what we asked for, and I'm very proud of my caucus. My caucus held the line. If Republicans hadn't blocked their initial attempts, this could have been done three weeks ago."

Republican Majority Leader John Thune tried to explain the deal as best he could: "We've been trying for weeks to fund the whole thing. And, I mean, in the end, this is what they were willing to agree to. But again, it's different that it has zero reforms in it. I mean, they got no reforms on DHS, which they could have had if they had been willing to work with us a little bit on that."

ICE and CBP have a $75 billion cushion thanks to BBB

"The good news," he insisted, "Is that we already foresaw this a year ago. I mean, one of the reasons we front loaded, pre-loaded up the 'one big, beautiful bill' with advanced funding for Homeland Security was because we anticipated this was likely going to happen, and it did. I still think it's unfortunate. The Dems wanted reforms. We tried to work with them on reforms. They ended up getting no reforms."

Thune referred to both ICE and CBP continuing to have $75 billion in funds thanks to the BBB approval, which gives them a financial cushion for a while to try to get a "reconciliation agreement" that would allow for their long-term funding.