Congress ended the longest agency shutdown in American history Thursday when the House passed a bipartisan bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security through September, excluding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. President Trump signed the legislation the same afternoon, restoring regular paychecks for Transportation Security Administration agents and thousands of other DHS workers after 76 days without routine appropriations.
The House acted by voice vote Thursday afternoon, a method that avoided a recorded roll call and allowed members from both parties to advance a compromise that many had resisted for weeks. Speaker Mike Johnson, who had previously dismissed the Senate version of the bill as poorly drafted, declared the vote a success after a budget resolution passed Wednesday provided a separate pathway to fund immigration enforcement through reconciliation — a process that does not require Democratic votes. Johnson said Republicans had secured a guarantee that ICE and Border Patrol funding would follow through that avenue.
The legislation allocates $48 billion to DHS agencies including FEMA, the Coast Guard, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. It does not fund ICE or CBP’s Border Patrol, whose employees have been receiving paychecks through a separate $170 billion fund Congress approved as part of Trump’s tax cuts last year. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had warned Congress the week before that emergency payroll money was nearly exhausted and that workers would miss paychecks within days.
The shutdown triggered measurable disruption across the country. More than 1,100 TSA agents quit during the funding lapse, contributing to extended wait times at airports. Preparations for this summer’s World Cup soccer matches, scheduled to be hosted across U.S. cities, were also halted during the shutdown. The bill’s passage restores those homeland security preparations.
The shutdown’s roots trace to a January immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis that resulted in the deaths of two U.S. citizens. Democrats subsequently refused to fund ICE and Border Patrol without operational reforms. Republicans rejected any restriction on enforcement funding. The impasse lasted 76 days before the Wednesday budget resolution unlocked a path forward.
In Spartanburg and across Upstate South Carolina, the resolution matters in several dimensions. The SC Ports Authority’s Inland Port Greer, located in Spartanburg County, processes container cargo that flows through U.S. Customs and Border Protection — a CBP function that remained separately funded but whose full operations are linked to overall DHS stability. SC-4 Rep. William Timmons, who sits on the House Financial Services and Oversight committees and represents Spartanburg, voted alongside his leadership in support of the budget resolution that unlocked Thursday’s deal.
