The House narrowly voted Tuesday to advance a shutdown-ending spending package, setting up a final vote later in the day that could send the more than $1 trillion piece of legislation to the president’s desk.
The measure will fund much of the government, including the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Housing and Transportation, through the end of September.
But Congress is only funding the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 13. The short-term agreement was reached after Democrats refused to sign off on annual funding without restrictions on immigration enforcement tactics after federal officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
The procedural measure was approved 217 to 215 after President Trump endorsed the package, which he negotiated last week. Trump worked with Senate Democrats on the agreement after they refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE and Customs and Border Protection. However, House Democrats have split on the agreement and Republicans had to rally all of their members to advance the bill.
Some hard-right Republicans threatened to oppose the deal unless it included the SAVE Act, which mandates documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote among other changes.
Ultimately, Trump convinced the holdouts to drop their opposition, clearing the way for the just over three-day shutdown to come to an end and setting up an even more contentious fight over immigration policy in the days ahead.
The short extension is meant to give lawmakers a narrow window to negotiate and pass policy changes for DHS, though it is unclear if the new deadline will give lawmakers enough time to work out their differences.
There is bipartisan consensus on some ideas, like mandating body-worn cameras. But other policies demanded by Democrats, like forbidding officers from hiding their identities with masks and requiring judicial warrants for enforcement operations, are non-starters for Republicans. Some Republicans say they will insist on measures targeting so-called “sanctuary cities.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and other top Republicans have already signaled that another short-term homeland security bill will be needed. Even without another stopgap measure, President Trump’s immigration crackdown will continue.
Congress gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement $75 billion over four years in the Republican tax and spending bill passed last year.
A deal to prevent a lengthy shutdown
Before the second deadly shooting by immigration officers in Minneapolis, the last of the federal funding bills was on track to sail through Congress with bipartisan support. Lawmakers were eager to avoid another lapse in funding following a record-long 43-day federal government shutdown last fall.
That shutdown ended with lawmakers coming to an agreement on funding measures for a few parts of government through September and passing only a short-term extension through the end of January for everything else, roughly 75% of annual non-discretionary spending.
Democratic appropriators praised the final spending package for staving off the deep funding cuts the Trump administration had requested. For example, the administration called for slashing the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by some 50%. The final legislation keeps the agency’s funding essentially flat.
The House passed those final measures and sent them to the Senate last week. After the second deadly shooting in Minneapolis, Senate Democrats pledged to withhold votes for the funding measures without reforms and even some Republicans expressed alarm about the tactics in Minnesota.
In the eleventh hour, Senate Democrats reached a deal with the White House to separate funding for most of the government from the homeland security spending bill.
But with the House in recess last week and unable to sign off immediately, parts of the federal government ran out of money. Even with House members back in Washington this week, the deal between the Senate and the White House appeared tenuous in the House, where Republicans have a paper-thin majority.
