Congress Ends Record 76-Day DHS Shutdown With Split Funding Plan That Leaves ICE and Border Patrol Funding Unresolved

The House voted April 30 to approve a Senate-passed bill funding most of the Department of Homeland Security, ending a 76-day partial shutdown — the longest agency shutdown in U.S. history — after President Donald Trump signed the measure into law. The legislation restores funding for agencies including FEMA, the Coast Guard, TSA, the Secret Service, and CISA through September, but deliberately excludes new appropriations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, leaving those agencies' long-term funding to be resolved through a separate budget reconciliation process.

The Details

DHS had been operating without routine funding since February 14, according to CBS News, NBC News, and NPR. The 76-day standoff outlasted every previous agency-level shutdown on record, straining operations across the department and leaving federal workers in prolonged uncertainty about their paychecks.

The central dispute was Democratic opposition to funding ICE and Border Patrol without changes to immigration-enforcement tactics. That opposition hardened following fatal shootings by federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year, with Democrats pushing for guardrails including body cameras, face-covering limits, and stricter warrant requirements, according to NPR and Politico.

The Senate unanimously passed a partial DHS funding bill in late March, but House Republicans initially blocked it, arguing it was insufficient because it omitted new ICE and Border Patrol appropriations, CBS News and NPR reported. The standoff continued until this week, when Republican leaders adopted a two-track strategy: pass the Senate bill immediately to reopen most of DHS, then pursue approximately $70 billion in immigration-enforcement funding separately through budget reconciliation — a procedure that requires only a simple Senate majority and no Democratic votes.

Pressure to act intensified in the final days of April. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned publicly that emergency payroll funds were nearly exhausted. "We have reached all the emergency funds we can reach into. I am completely out of the slush fund, I have no place to move at the end of the month," Mullin said, according to NPR. The White House also pressed Congress to act before May, CBS News and NBC News reported.

Speaker Mike Johnson explained the delay in taking up the Senate bill before the April 30 vote. "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," Johnson said, according to CBS News. After passage, Johnson argued the reconciliation strategy had preserved the GOP's position on immigration enforcement. "Democrats got absolutely nothing for their political charade and shenanigans out of them," Johnson said, per NBC News.

The operational toll on DHS during the shutdown was significant. More than 1,000 TSA officers quit during the standoff, according to airline-industry and congressional reporting cited by CBS News and Politico. Agencies across the department struggled to maintain core missions and retain personnel while operating on emergency funding measures that eventually ran dry.

House Appropriations Committee ranking Democrat Rosa DeLauro was blunt in her assessment of the delay. "It is about damn time that you come forward and do this," DeLauro said, according to Politico and ABC News-AP.

Context

The DHS shutdown was a direct consequence of the broader Capitol Hill fight over the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Democrats had demanded enforceable guardrails on ICE and Border Patrol operations — particularly after the Minneapolis shootings — as a condition for approving any new enforcement funding, according to NPR and Politico. Republicans refused those conditions and initially held the Senate's partial funding bill rather than accept an outcome that left immigration-enforcement agencies without new appropriations.

The resolution this week did not resolve that underlying disagreement. Republicans this week adopted a budget resolution opening the reconciliation process, which they plan to use to pass roughly $70 billion in immigration-enforcement funding without Democratic votes in the Senate, according to NBC News, ABC News-AP, and CBS News. That path avoids the 60-vote Senate threshold that had blocked a comprehensive DHS bill.

The agencies that did receive funding through the new law — FEMA, the Coast Guard, TSA, the Secret Service, and CISA — can now resume normal budget operations through September. ICE and Border Patrol remain in a separate funding track pending reconciliation legislation.

What's Next

Congressional Republicans have opened the budget reconciliation process and plan to advance approximately $70 billion in immigration-enforcement funding for ICE and Border Patrol without Democratic support, according to NBC News and CBS News. That legislation will move through committees before reaching a floor vote, though no timeline has been publicly announced.

For the agencies now funded through September, the immediate priority is rebuilding staffing and operational capacity after 76 days of budget uncertainty. TSA, which lost more than 1,000 officers during the shutdown according to CBS News and Politico, faces particular workforce pressure heading into the summer travel season.