Sen. Ted Cruz wants to rip ICE funding out of the stalled DHS budget and pass it with Republican votes alone, a move that would bypass the Democratic filibuster and end what he calls "Democrat lunacy on open borders."
The Texas Republican floated the idea during an interview with The Hill, arguing that if Senate Democrats refuse to fund DHS without gutting Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Republicans should stop waiting. Fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection through budget reconciliation, he said, and leave Democrats to explain why they held up airport security and border operations for weeks.
The proposal lands as DHS limps through a funding lapse that began February 14. TSA agents have missed two paychecks. Airports across the country are telling spring break travelers to show up three to four hours early. And Cruz says more than 300 TSA officers have already quit.
Cruz's logic is straightforward. Reconciliation requires only 50 Senate votes, no filibuster, no Democratic buy-in. As Breitbart reported, Cruz framed the standoff in blunt terms:
"Democrats have gotten so extreme and unreasonable... If that's where the Democrats are, I've suggested let's fund ICE and CBP through reconciliation. That Republicans can do with just 50 votes, we can do that relatively quickly and the Democrat lunacy on open borders can be put to an end."
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told The Hill he was "open to" the idea. And the concept appears to be picking up steam among Senate Republicans, who are growing pessimistic about reaching a bipartisan deal on the full DHS budget.
Newsmax reported that Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged the ferment but struck a more cautious note, saying "there are a lot of ideas swirling around right now, but the best way would be for us to come together" on a deal to fund the entire department. That preference for a comprehensive fix hasn't produced results so far.
The human cost of the funding lapse is piling up fast. Cruz pointed to the toll on TSA workers, who keep showing up at checkpoints without knowing when they'll be paid.
"TSA agents have now missed two paychecks in a row... over 300 of them have resigned."
Newsmax's reporting put finer numbers on the problem: national TSA absenteeism hit 10.2 percent on a recent day, and 366 TSA officers have quit since February 13. Airports have responded by urging passengers to arrive hours early, and long security lines have become the norm during one of the busiest travel windows of the year.
Cruz tied the security breakdown to a broader threat. He said there have been "four domestic attacks by radical Islamic terrorists" and stressed the need for "preventing terror attacks." Understaffed checkpoints at a time of elevated risk aren't just an inconvenience, they are a vulnerability.
President Trump weighed in Saturday with a post on Truth Social that matched the temperature of the moment. He threatened to deploy ICE agents to airports if Democrats refuse to fund DHS, writing that agents would "do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country." Trump singled out Somali immigrants and amid broader Republican divisions over DHS funding, directed fire at Minnesota's political leadership, naming Rep. Ilhan Omar and accusing her and the state's governor and attorney general of having "totally destroyed" the state.
The post was vintage Trump, maximum pressure, maximum attention. Whether ICE agents actually end up staffing airport checkpoints matters less than the signal: this White House will not let Democrats run out the clock on enforcement funding without consequences.
This isn't the first time Cruz has navigated a DHS funding fight by shifting tactics. During an earlier standoff over President Obama's immigration executive actions, Cruz and Sen. Susan Collins argued at a Senate GOP lunch that Republicans should narrow their target. As National Review reported, the pair proposed focusing solely on blocking Obama's 2014 executive orders rather than both the 2012 and 2014 programs. Cruz told National Review Online at the time that "the central focus of Republicans should be stopping President Obama's unconstitutional amnesty." Collins backed him, saying the 2014 order was "so broad in its reach that the president himself said, more than 20 times, that he didn't have the authority to take the kind of action that is included in the 2014 order."
The pattern is consistent. Cruz doesn't abandon the fight, he finds a narrower lane to keep moving. In the current standoff, reconciliation is that lane. Rather than accept a clean DHS bill stripped of enforcement teeth, he wants to carve out the agencies Democrats most want to defund and protect them with a vote threshold Democrats can't block.
It's a posture that fits Cruz's broader profile in Republican politics, where his standing with the party base remains strong and his willingness to push procedural boundaries has defined his Senate career.
The Democratic strategy is transparent. Hold DHS funding hostage long enough and Republicans will cave on ICE restrictions. Force TSA workers to go unpaid. Let airport lines grow. Blame the chaos on the party in power and hope voters don't notice who's actually blocking the money.
Cruz is calling the bluff. If Democrats won't fund the full department, fine, Republicans fund the parts that enforce the border and deport illegal immigrants. The rest of DHS can wait until Democrats decide they care about airport security as much as they care about shielding illegal immigrants from deportation.
The question is whether enough Senate Republicans will rally behind the reconciliation path or keep holding out for a grand bargain that Democrats have shown no interest in delivering. Thune's caution suggests leadership still prefers the traditional route. But every day the funding lapse drags on, every paycheck TSA agents don't receive, every three-hour security line, every resignation, the case for Cruz's approach gets harder to ignore.
Cruz has been willing to take aggressive positions on national security before, as his hawkish stance on Iran demonstrated. Splitting enforcement funding from the DHS mess follows the same instinct: don't wait for the other side to come around when you have the votes to act.
Five weeks without DHS funding. Hundreds of TSA officers gone. Airport security lines stretching for hours during peak travel season. And Senate Democrats still won't vote yes unless Republicans agree to weaken immigration enforcement.
Cruz's proposal doesn't solve every problem. It doesn't fund TSA. It doesn't end the broader standoff. But it protects the agencies that guard the border and enforce immigration law, the agencies Democrats most want to kneecap.
When your opponents tell you they'd rather let airports descend into chaos than fund border enforcement, believe them, and find another way to get it done.
