Republican Senator Asks President Trump To Force Congress’s Hand On DHS Shutdown

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is calling on President Donald Trump to force the Senate to return from their Easter break as the Department of Homeland Security shutdown drags on.

“President Trump has the power to convene the Senate under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution ‘on extraordinary Occasions,’” the Utah Republican posted to X on Sunday.

“If a department with 260,000 employees (DHS) going unfunded isn’t an ‘extraordinary occasion’—especially while the Senate is out on a two-week recess during that shutdown with no plans to resolve the impasse beyond ‘we’ll deal with that in two weeks’—I don’t know what is,” Lee added.

The Senate held a pro forma session on Monday morning, but made no progress toward funding DHS. Last week, the Senate approved a DHS funding deal that excluded ICE and Border Patrol, which Trump opposes, whereas the House passed a bill late on Friday that would extend funding for 60 days for the entire department. Both chambers were permitted to go home after passing their bills.

During the White House press briefing on Monday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump is “encouraging Congress to come back to Washington to permanently fix this problem and to fund and reopen the Department of Homeland Security entirely.”

A Republican aide told the Daily Wire on background that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) on Monday morning “told his colleagues this weekend that he would not bring them back for a show vote but would bring them back if there were a bill that would have the support to pass the Senate.” The aide noted that there is still a preference for the House to pass the Senate-backed bill.

In another post, Lee criticized the Monday session, saying that “no attempt was made to pass DHS funding by unanimous consent,” adding that “the Senate must convene now.”

Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) told Fox News on Monday that an effort to pass the House’s bill, known as a continuing resolution, was not attempted because Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) was in attendance in order to kill any effort to do so, as it would ultimately send the legislation to the president’s desk.

However, the North Dakota lawmaker said there could be an attempt made to do so on Thursday, and that he would like to see a three-year-long DHS funding push through reconciliation instead. A reconciliation bill is not subject to a 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

As for Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said that the 60-day CR from the House would be “dead on arrival,” and House Democrats largely wanted to pass the Senate deal, with all but three of them voting against the House Republican proposal.

“There is a bipartisan bill to end the chaos at airports,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) posted to X on Monday. “House Republicans rejected it and left town on vacation. Bring the House back. End the GOP shutdown. NOW.”

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), one of the three Democrats who voted for the CR, said that she believes reforming ICE is “necessary” but wanted to make sure federal workers at DHS get paid.

‘The president has agreed to several reforms to ICE — including mandatory body cameras, ID numbers, ending enforcement at hospitals and schools, and other reforms — but only in exchange for full 2026 funding of ICE,” she posted.

“Walking away from DHS funding will not fix anything about ICE and it screws a lot of hard-working people. Ideological purity that empowers a broken system and hurts working people is not what I was sent to Congress to be part of,” the Democrat added.

The impact of the shutdown is expected to be lessened starting this week, after Trump’s executive order last week to provide TSA officers with pay, as callouts and resignations continue to strain airport security lines.

The Daily Wire reached out to the White House for comment.