President Trump signed a House-passed bill on Wednesday to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, ending a shutdown that was described as the longest shutdown of a U.S. government agency in history. The move came after the administration warned that money to pay thousands of federal security workers would run out after Thursday without new funding.
The Senate had passed a DHS funding bill weeks ago, but that measure covered most of the department except ICE and Border Patrol. House Republicans had pressed for more of a guarantee that ICE would eventually be funded, then changed their position enough to let the DHS vote move forward. Speaker Johnson said, “The equations that we solved on legislation this week were virtually impossible.” He added, “Many of you said it couldn't be done. But we got it done because ultimately we just used patience and frankly, prayer.”
For DHS employees, pay should start flowing and work should resume as normal in the next few days. The bill leaves the core fight unresolved, though: Democrats had triggered the shutdown initially over ICE conduct, and there were no official changes at this point to ICE conduct. The compromise restored funding without settling the dispute that helped shut the government down in the first place.
That makes the next deadline sharper, not softer. Another fight is already looming over FISA authority, which expires at midnight, putting Congress back on a clock just as it is trying to recover from the shutdown it finally ended.
