WASHINGTON: The US Senate is moving forward on funding the Homeland Security Department, but it is unclear whether the House will pass legislation two days away from a partial agency shutdown as conservatives angrily reject the Senate plan.

Spending for the department, which oversees the nation’s borders, expires Friday at midnight — held hostage in a proxy battle over President Barack Obama’s recent executive actions sparing millions of immigrants in this country illegally from deportation.

Still, many House Republicans say they aren’t ready to admit defeat and approve spending for the department without demanding concessions from Obama.

If Congress doesn’t act before the deadline to fund Homeland Security for another year, the shutdown would mean almost 90 percent of the department’s workers who are considered essential would have to work without pay until the situation is resolved. The showdown is therefore unlikely to have an immediate impact on US security beyond worsening morale.

House Speaker John Boehner declined repeatedly to say what he would recommend to his conservative, fractious rank-and-file if the funding bill clears the Republican-controlled Senate.

“I’m waiting for the Senate to act. The House has done their job,” he said after a closed-door meeting of the rank-and-file. Even so, lawmakers were told to be prepared to spend the weekend in the Capitol to resolve the issue.

Senate Republicans offered to allow a vote on a bill to fund the agency without provisions that would overturn Obama’s executive actions on immigration.

On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said his party would support the bill. Reid had previously indicated he wouldn’t go along with it without first getting assurances that the bill would pass in the House.




The Senate then voted 98 to 2 in favor of a procedural motion that will allow the legislation to advance toward final passage.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said that without legislation to set new spending levels, there would be no money for new initiatives such as “border security on the southern border.” He also said disaster relief payments “would grind to a halt.”

Johnson also said a short-term extension would be problematic and that inadequate funding after Friday’s midnight deadline would deal the department a substantial blow.

McConnell’s proposal envisioned two separate votes, one on a bill to fund the Homeland Security Department, and the other to overturn Obama’s recent executive actions on immigration.

Obama said Thursday he would veto a stand-alone measure repealing his executive actions on immigration. The president, who was answering questions at a town hall meeting in Miami hosted by the Spanish-language TV network Telemundo, said he’s “absolutely committed” to his policy of prioritizing deportations of felons, rather than immigrants who have lived illegally in the US for years.