Congress Reaches Short-Term Deal to Avoid DHS Shutdown

UPDATE: The U.S. Congress voted late Friday to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but could only reach an agreement to fund the DHS for one week.

Earlier, the U.S. House of Representatives failed to agree on a key vote that would have funded the DHS, even for another three weeks. House lawmakers bickered over whether to fully fund the DHS to the end of the fiscal year in September, and instead failed to agree on any kind of resolution, sending the issue back to lawmakers to hash it out. The late-night resolution averts a partial shutdown for a week.

Earlier on Friday, the U.S. Senate voted to approve a full-year “clean bill” of $39.7 billion for the DHS until September. The DHS had said failure to provide funding before the 12:01 a.m. deadline would have shuttered some of its operations and furloughed roughly 30,000 employees, including most of the headquarters staff. Another 200,000 employees would have been compelled to work without pay. 

At issue is a mostly Republican led disagreement over the White House’s controversial immigration order to grant temporary work permits to an estimated 5 million immigrants who entered the United States illegally.

Secretary Jeh Johnson and other administration leaders had been pleading this week that the shutdown would demoralize employees and could have catastrophic consequences.