As infuriating as airport security lines might be for the average American, one of the most horrifying outcomes of the Homeland Security shutdown may have happened Monday when Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, was desperately trying to get to LaGuardia to investigate the fatal crash of the Air Canada jet. It didn’t matter that she urgently had to get to New York — or that she’s a high-ranking government official whose staff “begged” for her to be expedited — Homendy was stuck in line for three hours. Apparently, the chaos inflicted by Democrats is no respecter of persons.

“It’s been a really, really big challenge to get the entire team here, and they’re still arriving as I speak,” Homendy told reporters on Monday night, adding that the team had to come “by train, plane, and car.” After landing in D.C., she drove herself to New York, not wanting to chance another delay. 

But the practical fallout is just part of the story, congressmen warn. As inconvenient as crowded airports are, they’re nothing compared to the gaps in U.S. security from the Democrats’ block on DHS funding. “Our cybersecurity is not at its full speed,” Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) explained on Monday’s “Washington Watch,” “because people are not there to try to make sure that [our technology] is safe in this country.” Add that to the lapses in FEMA, Coast Guard, and TSA dollars — during a global war with Iran — and it’s a recipe for absolute disaster.

For their part, Democrats seem shockingly inflexible about their demands for ICE, even in the face of incredible public outcry. President Trump has been equally resolute, shooting down option after option from GOP leaders, who’ve been pulling their hair out to bring the quarrel to an acceptable end. Now, sources say, after the push-and-pull of the last five weeks, there was finally a flash of light at the end of the tunnel after a White House meeting with Senate Republicans late Monday.

Sensing Americans’ patience has worn thin and staring down the very real possibility that any terror attack would come back to haunt Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) caucus has inched closer to funding portions of DHS in recent days. While most of their demands continue to be non-starters — Republicans refuse to unmask ICE agents, for instance — conservatives have agreed to several changes in good faith, including some form of identification tags for agents, the expansion of bodycams, and an agreement not to raid “sensitive places” like schools and hospitals. What’s more, the administration argues, there’s been a significant leadership change at the top of DHS with Kristi Noem’s departure and also with Tom Homan’s personal oversight of deportation efforts.

“We’ve had some good victories,” Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) argued, “but I think the ultimate goal is to make sure that all the reforms get done.”

The mood is a little more cooperative in the Senate, The Hill points out, where Democrats “represent a more diverse range of voters and face additional pressures to cut a deal.”

The president, meanwhile, has rebuffed most attempts to compromise, telling his party as recently as Sunday that he wouldn’t fund DHS unless the GOP passed the election reforms in the SAVE America Act. He also wasn’t thrilled with the idea of passing the Homeland Security bill without ICE. While Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) recognizes the importance of securing the elections as well as any Republican, he’s also painfully aware of the limitations of his thin margins. “I think we all know that’s not realistic.”

By Monday night, Senate Republicans were leaning into another plan — financing all of DHS with the exception of “migrant removal operations” and shifting that funding and key elements of the SAVE America Act into a second reconciliation bill, which only needs a simple majority to pass. Asked by the press if she thinks the deal could get everyone on board, Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who’s been leading some of the negotiations, replied, “We do.” She added that the team trying to hash through these dynamics would be “working through the night “to try to “land this plane.”

The president seemed reluctantly open to the idea but admitted on Tuesday afternoon, “We’re going to take a good, hard look at it. I want to support Republicans,” he said. But, he warned, “Any deal they make I’m pretty much not happy with.” The same, apparently, goes for some Democrats, who came to the negotiating table, only for the party’s hardliners to try to sabotage the process. “If we are talking about funding any part of ICE or CBP, we absolutely must take some key steps to rein them in,” Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) insisted. “The current Republican offer in front of us does not do that.”

“If they want to have a conversation about some of the reform ideas that they had put in front of us, then that would be contingent upon actually providing funding for ICE,” Thune fired back. Others, like Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), were furious that Schumer’s party would consider reneging on the broad strokes of a deal. “I was told this is a deal the body had reached,” he shook his head. “I didn’t go down there and spend two hours with the president to get him to where the deal was to only have it changed. We can’t function that way.”

Other Democrats, anxious about the public outrage that’s boiling over, were more conciliatory. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) told reporters late Monday that he was “hopeful that we can get through this and fund these agencies.” His Vermont colleague, Senator Peter Welch (D), called it “a significant moment” just to get this far. “We have a dispute about ICE practices. We don’t have a dispute about funding TSA. We don’t have a dispute about funding the Coast Guard or FEMA.”

Even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) made Schumer’s job that much harder by openly stating that a compromise that funds all of DHS but ICE would likely get “strong Democratic support” on his side of the Capitol. “That’s not going to make resisting a deal in the Senate any easier for Schumer,” Axios pointed out.

One thing that could push the proposal over the edge — at least for Schumer and Thune’s chamber — is the calendar. Senators, who just came off a working weekend, are desperate to leave town for the long Easter recess that was supposed to kick off at the end of this week. “We are not gonna leave this place until we have DHS funded,” Oklahoma’s James Lankford (R) insisted.

As Punchbowl News acknowledged, there’s plenty in the framework for everyone to hate. “Hardline Republicans will say that their party has given up on taking the fight to Democrats on the SAVE America Act and failed to hold the line on DHS funding. Democrats will gripe that the bulk of their list of more than a dozen demands to reform ICE has gone unfilled, and that funding the rest of DHS removes some of their leverage. This will be especially acute in the House, where Democrats have been let down by the Senate time and time again.”

There’s also the significant mountain Republicans will have to climb with reconciliation, which, considering the party’s competing priorities, is a civil war waiting to happen. Between ICE funding, Iran war spending, Obamacare subsidies, and a basket of other ideas, narrowing the field of the GOP’s wish list will be tough. Not to mention that the election reforms in the SAVE America Act might be a heavy lift under the strict rules of the process, which state that the language has to have a legitimate budgetary impact. “It’ll take a little longer,” admitted Senator John Kennedy (R-La.), “but we could do it. If you want to throw in the SAVE Act, I’m fine with that. I don’t know how feasible that is…”

Regardless, “Our guys can’t agree to something and then have the Democrats back up and say, ‘Oh, well, now we want more things,’” Senator John Hoeven (R-N.D.) underscored. “The Democrats need to join us now. We bent over backwards negotiating with them. We talked to the White House and folks on our side, and they need to stop moving the goalposts.”