Trump signs funding package to end government shutdown

Feb. 3 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026 into law on Tuesday afternoon to reopen the federal government.

The House of Representatives earlier Tuesday voted 217-214 to approve the funding package that covers most of the government's agencies through September, but Homeland Security funding could end.

The DHS will get funding through Feb. 13, which is meant to give Congress time to debate measures to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents in the wake of two deadly shootings in Minneapolis last month.

The government has been partially shut down since Saturday, and reopened upon the president signing the funding package into law.

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No House Democrats voted for the measure, and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., was the only Republican to vote against the appropriations.

"We finalized true, bipartisan, bicameral bills to fully fund our government in a member-driven, district-focused way," House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., said on the House floor. "Funding the government is not an optional exercise. It's the most basic duty we have in Congress."

If Republicans and Democrats do not agree on DHS reforms by Feb. 13, the department might see another funding lapse or get more short-term funding.

"We have a list that we want done, and we aren't settling for half-measures," Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., told reporters Tuesday.

He said if Senate Republican leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., "don't want to come to the table and negotiate real reform, then they're going to have to explain to the American public why they're shutting down agencies."

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., earlier told Johnson that Democrats won't support the bill without restrictions on immigration enforcement, The Washington Post reported.

"We're going to have to evaluate what the real opportunity is to get dramatic change at the Department of Homeland Security. It needs to be bold, it needs to be meaningful, and it needs to be transformative," Jeffries told reporters on Friday.

"Absent a path toward accomplishing dramatic change, and making sure that ICE and DHS are conducting themselves like every other law enforcement agency in the country, then Republicans are going to cause another government shutdown," Jeffries threatened.

The Senate voted on Friday, 71-29, to pass five spending bills while separating out the DHS funding in order to enforce reform in the department.

Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee, led by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., sent a letter to other House Democrats on Sunday to encourage them to vote against the two-week funding package.

"Democrats must act now to demand real changes that protect our communities before Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection receive another dollar in funding," the Democrats wrote in the letter.

"This is what our constituents elected us to do -- to hold ICE and this administration accountable when they fail to adhere to the Constitution or follow the law."

The letter listed the demands that Democrats made to reform the DHS, including ending racial profiling, sending federal agents other than ICE back to their missions, ending the occupation of Minnesota, cooperating with state and local law enforcement on investigations and using judicial warrants instead of administrative warrants.

"We must claw back the blank check Republicans gave ICE and CBP in the One Big Ugly Bill [the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that funded the government]. The money provided through the One Big Ugly Bill is sufficient to fund both agencies for years with few, if any, guardrails.

"This Administration has already used this funding to deny members' immediate access to detention facilities, in direct contrast to appropriations law. It is too dangerous to allow this money to continue to be spent unchecked."

They also called for the ouster of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

They said Noem "must go. She has repeatedly abused her power and violated her oath of office, endangering the security of the United States, its people, and our institutions of government."