Steve Scalise

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise return to Capitol Hill Monday afternoon after a two-week Easter break with a long list of “must pass” legislation — and an even longer list of hurdles, including the possibility that long lines at the airports will return soon.

The House and Senate have to fund the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to end a shutdown that hits its 60th day Wednesday.

GOP majority leadership, with the blessing of President Donald Trump, has a strategy to get around Democrats’ opposition to fully funding Immigration & Customs Enforcement and Customs & Border Protection, two agencies under Homeland Security.

But that plan faces steep hurdles. Johnson, R-Benton, and Scalise, R-Jefferson, can’t afford to lose more than two Republicans on a number of party-line votes required by the budget reconciliation procedure. Already, the right-wing Freedom Caucus is demanding to know how the government is going to pay the $86 billion, three-year cost, knowing that some of the offsets will tee off moderate Republicans.

Trump wants Homeland Security fixed by June 1.

Meanwhile, Johnson and Scalise also have to move other controversial legislation that could bleed over into the effort to fund Homeland Security.

The surveillance powers detailed in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, called FISA, are set to expire April 20. The reauthorization bill keeps being put off because some GOP members are demanding reforms. And the ban on Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, sought by anti-abortion members, expires July 4 unless legislatively renewed, which also could fray feelings.

FISA Section 702 Fact Sheet

That doesn’t count the looming $200 billion ask to replenish armaments used against Iran. Nor does it include Trump’s demand that Congress pass legislation requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

TSA and ICE

Perhaps the biggest hurdle is the imminent return of airport passengers waiting three to four hours to clear security.

For more than two months, Democrats refused to agree to fund Homeland Security until stricter standards are placed on ICE and CBP agents charged with rounding up immigrants who may have entered the country without proper documentation. The issue became more salient after officers killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

The refusal to fund Homeland Security left ancillary agencies like the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency without money to pay employees who had no choice but to work. Unpaid TSA officers began quitting, calling in sick or otherwise not showing for work and causing airport security lines to shut down.

Those long lines relaxed after Trump's March 27 order that Homeland Security divert some of its money on hand to pay TSA.

But that is a temporary solution — one that could start ending this weekend for some Homeland Security employees, according to a DHS memo. Trump’s order covered full salaries and back pay for the missed pay periods between Feb. 14 and April 4.

“Any additional compensation owed to you will be paid once DHS funding is restored. At this time, do not submit timecards for pay period 7 (which began April 5) until further guidance is provided,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote in his memo. “We remain hopeful that Congress will fund the Department and allow us to reopen soon and get everyone back to work.”

Though the Democratic position has sympathy among some Republicans, a lot more conservatives have balked at establishing guidelines, arguing that those restrictions would cripple the Trump administration’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants.

Negotiations have, so far, failed.

And the situation became more fraught Tuesday with a letter U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, co-authored with two senators and another representative.

Troy Carter letter on third country deportation

Raising another issue with Trump's deportation efforts, the 30 Democrats signing the letter demanded an investigation into the practice of deporting immigrants to third countries where the deportees have no connections because the authorities deemed their homeland to be too dangerous. A federal court ruled Feb. 25 that “third country removals” are illegal.

The Trump administration has cut deals with 27 countries “to receive nonnationals deported from the United States,” the letter states. The signers want a report that includes the identities of the countries agreeing to take U.S. deportees, how many have been sent to third countries, and how much all this is expected to cost. Estimates are around $40 million.