WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives passed a $1.2 trillion funding deal to end the four-day partial government shutdown Tuesday, sending it to President Trump’s desk for his expected signature.
Lawmakers voted 217-214 to pass the compromise funding package, which cleared the Senate late Friday and keeps about 97% of the government operating through Sept. 30.
Now Congress faces a 10-day scramble to negotiate a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security before its key agencies run out of cash Feb. 13, a timeline Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) described as “an impossibility.”
“We’ve got a very short time frame in which to do this, which I argued against, but the Democrats insisted on a, you know, a two-week window, which, again, I don’t understand the rationale for that,” Thune grumbled to reporters ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
Just before the funding package cleared the House, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) spent about an hour arm-twisting a handful of GOP holdouts to squeak the bill through a key procedural hurdle.
The GOP holdouts were mainly miffed by the funding package not including the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote. While the SAVE Act has already passed the House, Senate Democrats have been able to block it via the 60-vote filibuster.
Multiple House Republicans wanted the SAVE Act either included in the funding deal — forcing a Senate vote that will likely fail and prolong the partial shutdown — or assurances from Thune that he would find a workaround to pass it.
Trump on Monday demanded House Republicans send the funding package to him without making any changes, wanting to keep the government shutdown as short as possible.
The funding lapse, which began at 12 a.m. Saturday, has had a minimal impact on federal operations compared to the record-breaking 43-day shutdown this past fall.
Last month, the House passed the remaining six of 12 total appropriations bills needed to keep Uncle Sam’s lights on for the rest of the fiscal year. Congress had previously passed the other six and Trump had signed them.
But then, at the 11th hour, Senate Democrats demanded reforms to immigration enforcement following the Jan. 24 shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
That led to the current $1.2 trillion funding deal, which includes five appropriations bills and a two-week spending patch to keep DHS afloat while negotiations play out on the Democrats’ demands.
Ironically, holding up the Homeland Security appropriations bill does practically nothing to stop the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations, because Republicans already funded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“What they’ll be shutting down,” Johnson warned Tuesday morning, “is FEMA operations, as we’re cleaning up on the winter storms and shutting down TSA, which is obviously necessary to keep the country moving through our airports, Coast Guard operations, I mean, so many important functions in the Department of Homeland Security.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has issued a list of demands, such as mandatory body cameras, no masks, stricter warrant rules, ending roving immigration patrols, and tighter accountability standards for officers.
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has demanded a ban on the deportation of American citizens.