Trump signs bill to reopen government
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 12 hours ago
- 4 min read
By CATIE EDMONDSON
A partial government shutdown ended earlier this week as President Donald Trump signed a spending package to reopen major parts of the government as well as fund the Department of Homeland Security during his negotiations with Democrats over restrictions on the administration’s immigration crackdown.
The package passed the House on a bipartisan 217-214 vote, and lawmakers from both chambers gathered in the Oval Office to applaud the shutdown’s end. But under the deal, the money for DHS lasts just through the end of next week.
The vote in the House capped an extraordinary spending fight that erupted 11 days ago, when the fatal shooting of an American citizen by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis torpedoed what had been a bipartisan deal to keep federal funding flowing and touched off a fevered round of negotiations. Senate Democrats demanded that any new homeland security money be tied to limits on Trump’s deportation campaign.
But even though the president endorsed the deal, which he reached with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., conservative Republicans who were dissatisfied with the concessions it included nearly thwarted it in the House.
Speaker Mike Johnson struggled until the last moment to muster the votes to bring it up Tuesday, haggling with an animated group of hard-line holdouts on the House floor for nearly an hour before he managed to cobble together a bare majority. Such messy and drawn-out scenes have become routine in the chamber, where Johnson is working with a razor-thin majority.
“I share the frustrations of many that the Senate altered our deal at the last minute,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., chair of the Appropriations Committee. “But our obligation is not to those emotions — it’s to the American people.”
While the package brings the current partial shutdown to a close, its passage created another funding cliff for Trump and congressional leaders, who now have roughly 10 days to strike a deal imposing new restrictions on immigration agents. If they fail, regular funding for the Department of Homeland Security would lapse.
Democrats and Republicans are still far apart on the changes they are willing to agree to, and key Democrats have said they would not vote for another stopgap measure if a deal is not reached at the end of next week.
Most Democrats, 193 of them, voted against the spending deal Tuesday, a reflection of how toxic funding the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has become in the party. Twenty-one supported it.
“I will not stand by and give any more money to Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem to bankroll an out-of-control operation that is terrorizing communities and shredding the Constitution,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., naming the president’s senior adviser and architect of his hard-line immigration policies and the homeland security secretary. “I am not interested in business as usual. Not for two more weeks; not for two more seconds.”
Twenty-one Republicans opposed the measure.
In addition to the stopgap measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security for 10 additional days to leave time for bipartisan talks over new immigration enforcement restrictions, the legislation also would fund major parts of the government through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. Those include the Treasury, Education, Labor and State Departments and the Pentagon.
The package rejects the deep spending cuts the Trump administration had requested, but overall provides small across-the-board trims to many federal agencies.
With the immediate funding crunch over, lawmakers must now turn their attention to what promises to be a remarkably difficult negotiation to unlock longer-term funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
Senate Democrats last week presented a set of demands that would need to accompany any more money for the department that included a prohibition on federal officers wearing masks and a requirement that federal agents wear body cameras and carry identification. Their proposal also would put an end to roving patrols and require warrants issued by a judge for arrests and searches.
Democrats have also demanded that federal agents be subject to the same use-of-force policies that apply to local and state law enforcement agencies, which require those involved in violent incidents to be subject to independent investigations if they are accused of wrongdoing.
“Absent bold and meaningful change, there is no credible path forward with respect to the Department of Homeland Security funding bill” on Feb. 13, when funding is set to lapse, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, said in a statement after the vote. Jeffries was among the Democrats opposing the spending package Tuesday.
Trump administration officials, eager to tamp down on at least some of the public outrage that bubbled up after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in less than a month, have already agreed to some changes. Noem said Monday that all immigration officers on the ground in Minneapolis would be equipped with body cameras and would be expanded nationwide “as funding is available.”
But agreement on other changes appears more elusive. Minutes after Trump signed the spending deal into law in a ceremony in the Oval Office, a defiant Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., essentially suggested that his party was in no mood to negotiate, telling the president to “stick to your guns.”
Democrats “do have some good ideas, I think, but I’ve got a better idea: It’s your idea,” Graham said, addressing Trump. “End sanctuary cities.”
He and other Republicans have said any enforcement changes must start by forcing states and municipalities to drop their policies against cooperating with federal immigration authorities.