Trump Signs DHS Funding Bill, Ending Partial Government Shutdown

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, effectively ending the partial government shutdown that began in February. The U.S. House had approved the measure hours earlier following White House warnings that emergency funding for DHS would run out as soon as Friday. The funding bill's passage comes after more than a month of House Republican opposition to the plan, which advanced unanimously out of the Senate in late March. "Speaker Johnson extended the DHS shutdown for over a month for no reason at all. This is the same bill the Senate unanimously passed five weeks ago," Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement. The bill wards off the potential for more missed paychecks to Transportation Security Administration agents, whose lack of pay earlier this year caused long lines at airports throughout the country. It does not include funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection, two DHS subagencies tasked with immigration enforcement. Lawmakers are attempting to fully fund ICE and CBP via a procedural tool known as budget reconciliation, which sets a 50-vote threshold in the Senate for spending measures, as opposed to the 60 votes often required to overcome a filibuster in the chamber. The first step in the budget reconciliation process advanced in the House late Wednesday. Lawmakers are working to finish the final product by June 1, a self-imposed deadline to pass GOP immigration priorities set by President Donald Trump. "To finish the job, Senate and House Republicans must pass the reconciliation bill that fully funds ICE and Border Patrol through the rest of President Trump's term," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chair of the Senate Budget Committee, posted to X on Thursday. Democrats refused to fund the immigration enforcement functions of DHS after two U.S. citizens were killed by federal agents during a January immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. Republicans balked at Democrats' calls for changes to the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policies, leading to an impasse that lasted more than 70 days. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., initially opposed the Senate version of the bill, which lacks ICE and some CBP funding, then days later announced in a joint statement with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., that the House had found a pathway forward and would soon take up the measure. Johnson, under pressure form some members of the House GOP who opposed the exclusion of immigration enforcement dollars in the Senate proposal, floated the idea of amending the bill earlier this week, which would likely have extended the shutdown and required the upper chamber to weigh in yet again. Ultimately on Thursday, under pressure from Trump and with the clock running out before a pre-planned one-week congressional recess that begins on Friday, Johnson made a move and sent the bill to Trump's desk. Johnson cast the vote as a win and said advancing the budget resolution for ICE and CBP was a precondition for a vote on funding the rest of DHS. "We held the Homeland bill ... because we had to ensure that [Democrats] could not isolate and eliminate those two critical agencies. We are getting those done now," Johnson told reporters after the vote. "So now that that box is checked, we're allowed then to proceed and go through with the rest of it."