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President Donald Trump has signed a bill to fully restore funding to the Department of Homeland Security, ending a record-setting 75-day lapse in funding for the critical agency tasked with protecting U.S. soil.
Trump signed the bill Thursday after the House of Representatives reached a bipartisan agreement to fund DHS. The House approved the Senate-passed spending measure by voice vote, covering most of the department’s appropriations through September.
Notably, however, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will remain unfunded under the current legislation.
HOUSE PASSES SENATE DHS FUNDING BILL AFTER JOHNSON REVERSES COURSE ON 75-DAY SHUTDOWN STANDOFF
The vote came after the Senate’s DHS funding bill had stalled in the lower chamber for more than a month as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., declined to put the bill on the floor over objections to language he said defunded law enforcement. The speaker’s opposition reflected the views of many in the Republican conference, who viewed the bill as a dead letter when the Senate passed it unanimously in March.
Johnson changed course this week after the White House appeared to side with the Senate and urged swift passage of the upper chamber’s bill.
With more than 200,000 personnel, DHS is one of the largest government agencies under the executive branch. In addition to ICE and CBP, several of the nation’s most critical government agencies fall under DHS, including Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and others.
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At roughly 75 days, the DHS funding lapse was the longest recorded partial government shutdown in U.S. history.
In an internal memo sent to Hill offices and obtained by Fox News Digital, the White House warned it would not be able to pay employees starting in May if the House did not pass the Senate’s partial DHS bill. The administration since early April had been using existing funds to cover six weeks of back pay and a new pay period for DHS employees — but warned that money was quickly being depleted.
“If this funding is exhausted, the Administration will be unable to pay DHS personnel beginning in May, which will once again unleash havoc on air travel, leave critical law enforcement officers — including our brave Secret Service agents — and the Coast Guard without paychecks, and jeopardize national security,” the memo states.
HOUSE PASSES FISA RENEWAL IN BIPARTISAN VOTE, PUTTING PRESSURE ON SENATE BEFORE LOOMING DEADLINE
Republicans are in the beginning stages of writing a separate party-line package to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But that legislation will not advance before lawmakers leave Washington for the upcoming recess period.
Fox News Digital’s Adam Pack and Krista Garvin and Fox News’ Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
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