Congress Ends Record DHS Shutdown; Passes Bill with No ICE, Border Patrol Funding

Congress on Thursday passed legislation that would restore funding to key parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, which ends a record 76-day shutdown of the department.

The House on Thursday passed the funding package by voice vote to partially fund DHS, which the Senate passed more than a month ago. President Donald Trump will likely sign the legislation to fully fund the Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration, Secret Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with other agencies that do not handle immigration and border enforcement.

Congressional Republicans will now focus on passing a reconciliation bill that would fund the Border Patrol and ICE to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. Using reconciliation would allow for the package to pass through the Senate with only 51 votes on partisan lines.

Funding DHS on partisan lines instead of a larger appropriations package would largely prevent Democrats from constraining Border Patrol and ICE’s immigration enforcement strategy and tactics.

This does not mean that everyone is happy with how Congress funded these parts of DHS.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said ahead of the vote, “I think it’s asinine that we’re funding the government this way.”

“The Senate is more concerned about preserving the filibuster than they are about preserving the Constitution. The filibuster is not in the Constitution. The appropriations bills are,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) said.

CNN reported:

Many in the House GOP take specific issue with one aspect of the bill: it includes language that specifically zeroes out money for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which many Republicans fear sets them up for primary challenges at home, facing attacks that they defunded ICE. (Johnson has privately sought to tweak the language, but has run into resistance from Senate GOP spending leaders, according to people familiar with the discussions.) But as the House prepared to leave for a week-long recess, Johnson and his leadership team decided in a private leadership meeting earlier Thursday that they had little choice but to move the bill. It’s not just their own members warning them to act, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former House member, has stressed publicly that he is almost out of money.

“This should have been done a long time ago,” Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) said. “I want to see a resolution today to make sure these guys are paid.”