WASHINGTON, D.C. — After 76 days of gridlock, a partial shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has come to a close — for the most part.
With the stroke of a pen Thursday, President Donald Trump ended months of uncertainty for thousands of DHS employees. Just a few hours earlier, the Republican-controlled House passed the measure to fund DHS, restoring money for critical operations like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
However, the bill leaves out funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — which received billions in additional funding from the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act” last year. The agency had been the sticking point in a months-long debate over Homeland Security funding and immigration enforcement — all while DHS employees and the American public faced the consequences of the stalemate, especially in airports earlier this year.
The last-minute push by House Republican leaders to vote on the bill came as lawmakers faced pressure to act before leaving for a one-week recess. The House had sat on the Senate-passed funding bill for roughly four weeks before deciding to take action Thursday.
“We held the homeland bill, the underlying funding bill, because we had to ensure that they could not isolate and eliminate those two critical agencies,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., referring to ICE and Border Patrol. “We are getting those done now. We passed the resolution first. That was critically important for us to do to ensure that we’re going to protect the homeland, even though Democrats are unwilling to do it.”
Republicans say the delay was about protecting federal law enforcement agencies — not politics. But Democrats blame the majority for the standoff.
“Republicans don’t get to block national security funding for 33 days and then blame Democrats for the consequences,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Tuesday. “How ridiculous. No one’s buying that.”
Some lawmakers are looking for ways to shield critical agencies, like the U.S. Secret Service, from partisan funding battles. Congressman Mike Kelly, R-Pa., believes the Secret Service should move back under the Treasury Department’s jurisdiction.
“Get Secret Service out of Homeland Security, get it back to Treasury, let it work there where it’s more of an entity that we understand as opposed to trying to fund this whole big model and trying to figure out which ones are the highest priority,” Kelly said.
For now — key DHS agencies are getting back on stable ground. Still, thousands of employees and contractors are dealing with the impacts of a 76-day funding lapse.
Republicans say they plan to use a special procedure known as budget reconciliation to pass funding for ICE. If they are successful in utilizing the procedure, only a simple, 51-vote majority would be needed to pass in the Senate, instead of the typical 60-vote threshold.
