After weeks of delay, the House voted Thursday to fund much of the Department of Homeland Security, but not its immigration enforcement operations, and send the bipartisan package to President Donald Trump to sign, endingthe longest agency shutdown in history.
Mike Gayzagian, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2617, which represents roughly 2,300 TSA officers in New England, including at Boston’s Logan Airport, said “we’re all very glad it’s over.”
“It’s unfortunate that we ever had to go through it in the first place. So we’re hoping that something is done that we don’t have to revisit this again at the end of the fiscal year in September,” he said.
The White House had warned that temporary funding Trump had tapped to pay Transportation Security Administration and other agency personnel would “soon run out,” and that sparked new threats of airport disruptions.
DHS has been without routine funds since Feb. 14, causing hardship for workers, though much of Trump’s immigration agenda that is central to the dispute is being funded separately.
The House swiftly voted by voice, without a formal roll call, to pass the measure.
The House’s narrow Republican majority has repeatedly stalled out under House Speaker Mike Johnson, with his own party tangled in internal disputes on a range of pending issues, including the homeland security funding. While the Senate unanimously approved the bipartisan package a month ago, the bill languished in the House.
Democrats refused to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol without changes to those operations after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal agents during protests against an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. Republicans would no go along with a plan pushed by Democrats to fund TSA and the other parts of DHS without the money for ICE and Border Patrol.
To break the impasse, Republicans in both the House and Senate decided to tackle the immigration enforcement funding on their own through what is called budget reconciliation, a cumbersome weekslong process ahead.
By beginning that budget process Johnson, R-La., was able to unlock a broader bipartisan bill for TSA agents and the rest of DHS. House Republicans late Wednesday adopted budget resolution on a largely party-line vote, 215-211, that is focused on eventually providing $70 billion for immigration enforcement and deportations for the remainder of Trump’s time in office and ensure Democrats can no longer block funding. Trump’s term ends in January 2029.
But Gayzagian is already looking ahead to the next potential shutdown, and says the fact that it’s become “normalized” is a problem.
“If we’re doing this again in October, going forward, it’s going to be really difficult to find good people to come in and stand post at the checkpoints and keep the public safe,” he said. “These kinds of things, it makes it a hard sell to bring in fresh recruits.”
