House passes budget package, teeing up DHS funding fight
Benjamin Weiss
WASHINGTON (CN) — The House on Tuesday gave its final approval to a package of spending bills to fully fund government programs for the rest of the 2026 fiscal year, ending a partial government shutdown that ran through the weekend.
And, by narrowly passing the appropriations legislation, the lower chamber concurred in the Senate’s move to freeze funds for the Department of Homeland Security as Democrats demand a laundry list of reforms to federal immigration enforcement operations.
The package, approved on a 217-214 vote Tuesday afternoon, bundles together budget figures for federal programs across five separate bills. The plan also extends spending limits for DHS for two weeks in a stopgap measure known as a continuing resolution.
Senate Democrats last week successfully pushed Republicans into peeling off Homeland Security funding from the broader appropriations package, as the agency faces fresh scrutiny after federal agents shot and killed a second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis late last month. Democrats have demanded appropriators write a raft of reforms into the Homeland Security budget, including language barring immigration officers from wearing masks and requiring them to secure judicial warrants before forcibly entering people’s homes.
Lawmakers have pitched the continuing resolution inked by the House on Tuesday as an effort to buy time for negotiations.
The success of the appropriations package also brings an end to a brief partial government shutdown, which began over the weekend in the absence of a final budget for several federal agencies, including the Pentagon and the Labor Department. The House, which was out of Washington last week, was not able to return in time to completely sidestep a shutdown.
Though lawmakers were able to get the budget bills and Homeland Security stopgap across the finish line, House Republican leaders were not happy with what they called Democratic gamesmanship with federal funding.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed his colleagues across the aisle for inserting uncertainty into the appropriations process, which he said was on a “glide path” to passing the House before last week.
“Of course, the Democrats could not miss an opportunity to try to shut down the government again,” Johnson said. “Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats are playing games with government funding.”
The House speaker added that Republicans and the White House had agreed “in good faith” to split Homeland Security funding off from the rest of the appropriations bills and said negotiations on Democrats’ demanded reforms would move ahead with GOP input.
“We have to make sure we maintain the important parameters here,” said Johnson. “You can’t move down the road of amnesty. You can’t in any way lighten the enforcement requirement of federal immigration law.”
Democrats last week rolled out their formal list of demands for the forthcoming Homeland Security budget legislation. Among those, party leaders said Congress must consider language requiring federal agents to use body cameras and barring them from using masks to conceal their identities.
Democrats also demanded Homeland Security establish a universal code of conduct for immigration enforcement operations and that federal agents acquire a warrant signed by a judge before forcibly entering a home.
Some Republicans have expressed openness to discussing several of those proposals, including a code of conduct and body camera requirements, but it appears the GOP will also demand concessions from Democrats in the form of changes to sanctuary city policies.
“[W]hat must be a part of that discussion is the participation of blue cities in federal immigration enforcement,” Johnson said Tuesday morning. “You can’t go to a sanctuary city and pretend like the law doesn’t apply there.”
Sanctuary cities, the subject of years of Republican ire, are locations across the U.S. that limit or refuse cooperation with the federal government on immigration enforcement.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham last week said Senate leadership had committed to hold a future vote on his proposed bill to do away with sanctuary cities. Graham had briefly held up the appropriations package in the upper chamber as he demanded action on the issue.
Meanwhile, the five spending bills and Homeland Security stopgap were on their way to President Donald Trump’s desk Tuesday afternoon. The president was expected to sign.