“This gambit that was done last night is a joke,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday.
Johnson said that instead House Republicans would seek to pass a bill that would fund the entire department at current levels until May 22.
House Republicans are angry that the bill passed early Friday by the Senate does not fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol. Democrats refused to fund those departments without changes to immigration enforcement practices.
“We're going to do something different,” Johnson said, challenging the Senate to take up the House's continuing resolution on Monday, assuming does pass the House, which is uncertain.
Senators have already left town after acting in the early morning hours to end the partial shutdown, so it would take time for them to return if the House ends up passing a different measure than the one that cleared the Senate in the early morning hours Friday.
