THE record-breaking 75-day-long partial government shutdown is nearing its end after the House passed a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday.
The bill secured paychecks for TSA agents, Coast Guard officers and workers of other agencies under DHS just in time for the busy summer travel season.
The bill to fund the department will now head to Trump’s desk for his signature.
The House abruptly passed the package, which includes no funding for federal immigration enforcement in a major win for Democrats, in a voice vote, CNN reported.
In a voice vote, the names of lawmakers and the tally of votes are not recorded.
Instead, a presiding officer states the question and asks those who are in favor of it to reply “yea” in unison and those against it respond “nay.”
The presiding officer then announces a result based on their best judgment.
The decision to host a voice vote appears to have ruffled feathers in the Republican party as some House leaders had been adamant about not caving in.
“I think it’s asinine that we’re funding the government this way,” Texas Representative Chip Roy said before the vote, per CNN.
While the Senate and House went back and forth for weeks trying to pass a funding bill, travel chaos ensued with bottlenecking wait times throughout US airports as hundreds of TSA agents quit or stopped showing up for work.
The DHS warned that more than 1,000 TSA officers left their roles.
Affected employees’ health insurance coverage continued for the duration of the shutdown.
It began on February 14, leaving TSA agents without pay for weeks until the President Donald Trump ordered funds to be redirected to them on March 27.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned almost a month later that TSA was just weeks away from running out of money.
The passage came after the Senate conducted a voice vote on April 2 as members of Congress traveled around during their two-week break.
Texas Representative Keith Self slammed Senators for passing the bill in “the dead of night” before “leaving town” for a two-week break for Easter and Passover.
Only five senators were in the chamber during the voice vote, with no one there to object, Self said on X.
The vote was initially rejected by the House, with House Speaker Mike Johnson who blasted it as a “joke.”
“They have taken hostage the funding process of government so they can impose their radical agenda on the American people and we can’t have any part of it,” the house speaker said.
“This gambit that was done last night is a joke,” he raged, adding that the reason the House couldn’t accept the bill was because “we’re not going to risk not funding the agencies that keep Americans safe.”
He added, “The Department of Homeland Security is the third largest department of the federal government. It has ten agencies beneath it, it’s not just TSA, it’s also FEMA, the Coast Guard, all these agencies that keep us safe.
“We must fund them. This not a game.”
The episode highlighted deep divisions in Washington over border security and enforcement powers, while also underscoring the repeated reliance on short-term funding patches to keep DHS operating.
Politicians were also slammed for traveling during the break as the shutdown continued.
Congressional delegates, including Missouri Representative Jason Smith and Michigan Representative Bill Huizenga, were seen in photographs published by TMZ taking a trip to Scotland.
The outlet also shared a snap of Senator Lindsey Graham in Disney World.
He told TMZ he was in Florida for a meeting with Trump officials and went to Orlando to meet up with some friends afterwards.
“I voted seven times to fully fund the government. Call a Democrat,” he said.
Robert Garcia, a California Representative was spotted at a Las Vegas Casino while Texas Senator Ted Cruz was seen onboard a flight at Ft. Lauderdale Airport.
House Speaker Johnson revealed at the time Republicans were drafting their own version of a bill that would fund DHS through May 22, but later appeared ready to accept the Senate’s plan.
Congress struggled to pass a funding bill after Democrats raised concerns about ICE policies following the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
The two American citizens were killed in January by federal ICE agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Despite the backlash and legislative standoff, funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol was ultimately approved under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was signed into law in July.
The bill also allocates new spending on defense and immigration enforcement and includes budget cuts on a variety of programs such as Medicaid.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/16295817/dhs-funding-bill-passed-tsa-lines/
