The longest government shutdown in American history is finally over after the House approved the Senate’s plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security and Trump signed the bill into law.
Funding for the DHS lapsed in February amid a partisan stalemate over money that would be allocated to the Trump administration’s immigration operations. It remained shuttered for 76 days, shattering the previous record for the longest shutdown by more than a month.
As it stands, Democrats and Republicans still haven’t made progress in negotiations over Trump’s immigration agenda. But the GOP was able to settle enough of its own intra-party disagreements to push through a plan to end the broader standoff amid heavy pressure from the White House and the looming threat of even more chaos at airports across the country.
Here’s a rundown of what led to the shutdown, why it lasted so long and how it finally got resolved.
How we got here
The roots of the DHS shutdown date back to January. After two deadly shootings by immigration officers in Minneapolis, Democrats pledged to use the filibuster to block any new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) unless Congress approved major reforms to how those agencies operate. Republicans rejected nearly all of Democrats’ proposed reforms, including a ban on agents wearing masks and higher standards for the warrants used in immigration raids. The GOP initially refused to split its funding bill so that the non-immigration agencies within the DHS could continue to operate while the two parties debated immigration reforms.
Both sides dug in their heels and the DHS shut down on Feb. 14. Even though the disagreement was strictly about immigration, the shutdown affected every agency within the department, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Coast Guard. In fact, CBP and ICE were in a much better position to weather the shutdown than those other agencies because of an influx of money they got from a Republican spending bill passed last summer.
Why did it last so long?
It took nearly a month for the shutdown to start having a meaningful impact on everyday Americans. During that period, lawmakers faced little public pressure to find a quick resolution to the standoff.
That changed in a sudden and dramatic way in March, when thousands of TSA security officers began calling out of work after working throughout the shutdown without getting paid. The resulting staffing shortages led to severe bottlenecks at security checkpoints in airports across the country, reportedly causing wait times as long as six hours in some cases.
Airport disruptions have historically been a reliable catalyst for bringing shutdowns to an end, but that didn’t happen this time. In late March, President Trump took the unprecedented step of signing an executive order authorizing his administration to reallocate funds from other parts of the budget to pay the TSA. He signed a second order a few days later that allowed all other DHS employees to be paid as well.
Toward the end of the airport crisis, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate reached an agreement to pass a bill with funding for every agency in DHS other than ICE and CBP. At first, there was optimism that the House would quickly approve the bill as well, but that plan fell apart when GOP hardliners insisted that they would sink any proposal without funding for immigration enforcement included.
For the past several weeks, the debate over ending the shutdown has happened almost entirely within the Republican Party, as GOP leaders searched for a solution that could get the support of the various factions of their caucus.
How did it end?
House Republicans had faced mounting pressure from the White House to approve funding for non-immigration DHS agencies, which include the Secret Service, in the aftermath of Saturday’s attack at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. They were also up against a time crunch after DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned that the emergency funds being used to pay the TSA and other DHS agencies would run out soon.
In the end, House Republicans conceded to passing the same bill that the Senate sent over more than a month ago.
What about immigration enforcement?
With the rest of the DHS funded through the end of September, Republicans are now shifting their attention to pass additional funding for CBP and ICE. To do that, they plan to use a process called reconciliation, which allows budget-focused bills to be passed with a simple majority and can’t be blocked by the filibuster.
That sets up what could be another fierce debate within the GOP. Republicans have spent the past several weeks debating what should go in the bill, with some members calling for their party to pack it with their policy priorities. But key Republican leaders, including Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, want to keep it tightly focused on immigration enforcement.
Trump has called on the GOP to send the reconciliation bill to his desk by June 1.
