WASHINGTON (OSV News) — President Donald Trump signed into law a funding package to end the partial government shutdown Feb. 3, hours after its passage in the House, which included an agreement for funding for the Department of Homeland Security to be renegotiated to include new, stronger constraints on federal immigration officers.
The approximately $1.2 trillion spending package, already approved by the Senate, passed the House in a 217-214 vote.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters at the Capitol Feb. 3, “We’ve now funded 11 of the 12 separate appropriations funding bills for the government for the year. And that’s a big achievement because it’s a big move towards regular order. This is something we promised and committed to. The biggest move towards that in many, many years.”
“Now, the President and the White House have engaged in good faith with Democrats in the Senate, and they’ve said they would negotiate on the final bill, the Homeland bill,” Johnson continued. He argued that funding is “not just Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s not just Customs and Border Patrol. It is TSA, it’s the agents who keep us safe in the airports and keep air travel moving. It’s the Coast Guard. It’s Secret Service. It’s FEMA. We’re in the middle of winter storms that people are still digging out from. This is no time to jeopardize that funding.”
But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a statement, “The Trump administration has gone too far, ICE is completely out of control and the American people know it.”
“Taxpayer dollars should be spent making life more affordable for everyday Americans, not brutalizing and killing U.S. citizens and law-abiding immigrant families,” he said. “Republicans enacted the largest cut to Medicaid in American history and ripped food from the mouths of hungry children, seniors and veterans in order to give DHS a $191 billion slush fund. That must change.”
Just prior to the partial government shutdown, six of the 12 annual spending bills for the current budget year were already signed into law by Trump.
But the Jan. 30 deadline to get the other six done — including one funding DHS and ICE — passed without a resolution when some lawmakers called funding for DHS into question after the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. 37-year-old citizens and Minneapolis residents shot and killed by federal agents Jan. 7 and 24 respectively, as they protested immigration enforcement actions in that city. Democrats called for the appropriations bill funding DHS to be renegotiated to include new, stronger constraints on federal immigration officers.
Among Catholic voices demanding that Congress intervene were Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey. He joined several religious leaders for a Jan. 25 “National Faith Call to Action,” organized and hosted online by the global faith-based network Faith in Action, and urged participants to ask their elected officials to vote against funding for what he called a “lawless organization.”
“We mourn for a world, a country that allows 5-year-olds to be legally kidnapped and protesters to be slaughtered,” said the cardinal, appearing to reference the detention of Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old child who along with his father was taken into custody by federal agents in their Minneapolis suburb Jan. 20 after arriving home from school, and sent to a family detention facility in Texas. Ramos and his father Adrian Conejo Arias, who had legally applied for asylum in the U.S., were released on a judge’s order and flew back home Feb. 1.
Other faith leaders including Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have called for prayer and calm in Minneapolis amid tension in that city in the wake of the deaths of Pretti and Good.
The White House, Democratic and Republican senators reached a deal to strip funding for DHS from the remaining package of six spending bills, which would allow the other five bills to pass, as well as a two-week extension of DHS funding at current levels to allow further negotiations.
But that plan was delayed when Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., placed a “hold” on the bill, a Senate procedure that can block quick passage, demanding votes on sanctuary states and cities, and another on an amendment regarding DOJ searches of lawmakers’ phone records in relation to Trump’s unfounded claims the 2020 election was stolen.
However, after an agreement to allow votes on amendments to the package, the Senate passed the compromise package Jan. 30, but had to wait for the House to return the following week and approve the package before it could be sent to Trump’s desk.
Sister Mary Haddad, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, in a Jan. 30 statement had called the legislation “an important step toward making sure people can get the care they need when they need it.” She said CHA supported “bipartisan efforts to address concerns related to the Department of Homeland Security.”
“We hope lawmakers will agree to restore protected status for anyone seeking medical care and will adopt safeguards around immigration enforcement that respect the life and inherent dignity of all people in our communities,” she said. “The Catholic Health Association remains committed to working with policymakers to strengthen access to care, support caregivers, and uphold the dignity and well-being of every person and every community.”
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