1 of 5 | Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to the press after leaving the House floor at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. The House and Senate have passed a funding package to end the partial government shutdown. It now awaits President Donald Trump’s signature. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Feb. 3 (UPI) — Congress on Tuesday approved a funding package that will cover most of the government’s agencies through September, but Homeland Security funding is still up in the air.
The DHS will get funding through Feb. 13, which is meant to give Congress time to debate measures to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents in the wake of two deadly shootings in Minneapolis last month.
The government has been partially shut down since Saturday, and as soon as President Donald Trump signs the legislation — which he is expected to do — the government will reopen.
The funding measures passed the House in a bipartisan 217-214 vote. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., was the only Republican to vote against the appropriations.
“We finalized true, bipartisan, bicameral bills to fully fund our government in a member-driven, district focused way,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., said on the House floor. “Funding the government is not an optional exercise. It’s the most basic duty we have in Congress.”
If Republicans refuse to cooperate with Democrats on DHS reforms by Feb. 13, the department will see another funding lapse or get more short-term funding.
“We have a list that we want done, and we aren’t settling for half-measures,” Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., told reporters Tuesday.
He said if Senate Republican leader John Thune, R-N.D., and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., “don’t want to come to the table and negotiate real reform, then they’re going to have to explain to the American public why they’re shutting down agencies.”
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told Johnson that Democrats won’t support the bill without restrictions on immigration enforcement, The Washington Post reported.
“We’re going to have to evaluate what the real opportunity is to get dramatic change at the Department of Homeland Security. It needs to be bold, it needs to be meaningful, and it needs to be transformative,” Jeffries told reporters Friday. “Absent a path toward accomplishing dramatic change, and making sure that ICE and DHS are conducting themselves like every other law enforcement agency in the country, then Republicans are going to cause another government shutdown.”
The Senate voted on Friday to allow passage of five spending bills while separating out the DHS funding in order to enforce reform in the department.
Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee, led by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., sent a letter to other House Democrats Sunday lobbying colleagues to vote against the two-week funding package.
“Democrats must act now to demand real changes that protect our communities before Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection receive another dollar in funding,” the Democrats wrote in the letter. “This is what our constituents elected us to do — to hold ICE and this administration accountable when they fail to adhere to the Constitution or follow the law.”
The letter listed the demands that Democrats made to reform the DHS, including ending racial profiling, sending federal agents other than ICE back to their missions, ending the occupation of Minnesota, cooperation with state and local law enforcement on investigations, using judicial warrants instead of administrative warrants, and more.
“We must claw back the blank check Republicans gave ICE and CBP in the One Big Ugly Bill [the omnibus “Big Beautiful Bill” that funded the government]. The money provided through the One Big Ugly Bill is sufficient to fund both agencies for years with few, if any, guardrails. This Administration has already used this funding to deny Members’ immediate access to detention facilities, in direct contrast to appropriations law. It is too dangerous to allow this money to continue to be spent unchecked.”
They also called for the ouster of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
They said Noem “must go. She has repeatedly abused her power and violated her oath of office, endangering the security of the United States, its people, and our institutions of government.”
