The Democrats unconditionally surrendered the shutdown — the GOP might screw it up anyway

Democrats unconditionally surrendered early Friday morning, passing funding for the Department of Homeland Security after their five-week shutdown ground airport security lines to a halt, stopped paychecks for TSA agents and other employees, and crippled the department’s ability to prepare security for the World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) promptly tried to claim victory anyway, posting on X: “After weeks of negotiations, Republicans caved to our demands to fund DHS without a blank check for ICE and CBP.”

House Republicans should not panic because Democrats staged a little theater for their own base. They should take the win.

That is false.

Republicans did not accept any Democrat demands, though they came close as recently as last weekend, had Democrats been willing to negotiate in good faith. And both Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection already have billions in funding, with much more easily available by June through reconciliation, which requires only 51 votes in the Senate.

So what exactly were Democrats demanding?

The minority party wanted judicial warrants, against court precedent, that would have crippled enforcement. Democrats also wanted to ban the face coverings agents use to protect their families from violent activists. They wanted to end patrols, stop enforcement at courthouses and other key locations, bar agents from relying on observations such as accent, occupation, or appearance, and place use-of-force investigations under the jurisdiction of often politicized local police departments.

They got none of it.

The remarkable part is that they could have walked away with something. As recently as last weekend, Republicans were still trying to bring Democrats to the table.

“We got on our front foot by negotiating in good faith last week and through the weekend and offering low-hanging concessions,” a senior White House official told the Beltway Brief. But Democrats wanted more and kept moving the goalposts.

As for ICE and CBP funding, the panic on the right is misplaced. Both agencies already have billions. Neither gave up a single enforcement tool. And now that the shutdown is over, both can be funded again through reconciliation.

That is the same process that already delivered more than $100 billion in funding to begin with and insulated both agencies from the Democrats’ theatrical shutdown. Reconciliation requires only a simple majority, though it can address only spending matters that directly affect the budget.

That is also why reconciliation cannot be used to pass new policy such as the SAVE America Act. The Senate parliamentarian enforces those rules. But she has already allowed ICE and CBP funding through reconciliation, and nothing suggests she would rule differently this time.

Democrats had an opening here. President Trump had no interest in handing the minority party concessions, but Senate Republicans were more open to it. Democrats refused because they wanted to tell their base they shut the government down and would not budge. Now that face-saving fiction is all they have left while funding resumes and ICE and CBP money likely arrives within the next two months, according to White House projections.

Then came the frustrating part.

Friday afternoon, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) found a way to snatch defeat from victory, issuing a forceful statement that the House would not accept this outcome. His hand is being forced by conservatives furious that the Senate stripped the funding from this measure and worried about the precedent. But that reaction misses the strategic reality.

They’re making a mistake.

House Republicans should not panic because Democrats staged a little theater for their own base. They should take the win. Democrats shut down the DHS, inflicted weeks of pain, gained nothing, and then surrendered.

Call it what it is: a Republican victory.

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