Congressional Republicans at each other's throats over shutdown battle — again

Senate Majority Leader John Thune pushes his glasses up as he speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., October 14, 2025. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

The Republican-led chambers of Congress are once again going to war with each other, according to a new report from The Hill, with members of the House lashing out against the Senate's developing plan to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

In a report published Thursday morning, The Hill spoke with various Republicans across each chamber, finding major antipathy from House lawmakers to the Senate's plan to fund ICE and CBP separately from the rest of DHS, "via a 'skinny' party-line reconciliation bill to speed it through the process." The agency is in the midst of a record-breaking shutdown, as Democrats have refused to go along with funding the immigration enforcement agencies involved in Trump's mass deportation agenda until significant reforms are imposed on them.

As the Senate plans to vote on a budget blueprint next week, some in the House are lashing out against the idea of funding ICE and CBP separately, and are pushing for a plan to fund all of DHS via a party-line reconciliation bill.

"House Republicans already lashed out at the prospect of passing a bipartisan Senate bill to fund the rest of DHS, demanding that the party-line reconciliation bill for ICE and Border Patrol funding pass first," The Hill explained. "And some want to fund the full department in reconciliation without breaking off ICE, partly to punish Democrats who refused to fund immigration enforcement without significant reforms."

“The Senate doesn’t get — they’re not the only say in this,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican and policy chair of the House Freedom Caucus, told The Hill. “I would strongly recommend that they talk to all of us who have a vote — unless they want to go try to patch together votes with Democrats.”

Rep. Eric Burlison, a Missouri Republican, also said that “the Senate is being very short-sighted” in the push to get DHS funded, added that a “narrowly tailored” reconciliation bill would be “pathetic” and “disappointing.”

Roy and Burlison are also among the Republicans pushing for additional legislative priorities to be added to the bill, with the former warning that the party might not get a chance to push for them again.

“I think we are likely only to be able to have one other bite at the apple. I’m not saying a third is impossible. I’m just saying, look, we’re trying to get appropriations done. You’re going to get to July, then it’s August, then it’s fall, and come on,” Roy told The Hill. “So my view is, if we need to get DHS funded, let’s get on that horse. Let’s add some other things to it. Let’s move it forward. So you want to deal with defense, deal with it there. Figure out how to pay for things.”

“We are going to disappoint the American people. We have an opportunity. We do not need to be just coasting into the midterms. This is something that — either this has to happen in reconciliation two, or … we have to do reconciliation three before the midterms,” Burlison added.

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