House votes to end partial government shutdown, setting up contentious talks on ICE

The House has approved a more than $1 trillion spending package that brings to an end the partial government shutdown. The legislation passed by a vote of 217 to 214, with 21 Democrats joining Republicans in support of the measure. The Senate passed the package on Friday and President Trump has endorsed the plan.

The measure funds several of the government’s largest departments through the end of the fiscal year in September. This includes the Pentagon and the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Department of Transportation, the Education Department and Housing and Urban Development.

The spending agreement also includes a stopgap measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security through February 13. Lawmakers are aiming to use that 10-day window to negotiate changes to federal immigration enforcement in the wake of the deaths of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last month. Democrats are calling for several reforms, including body-worn cameras, forbidding officers from hiding their identities and requiring judicial warrants for enforcement operations.

While there is bipartisan support for body-worn cameras, Republicans have voiced resistance to other Democratic demands, signaling a difficult stretch ahead for negotiations.

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.