President Trump signed bipartisan legislation Thursday to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, ending a 76-day shutdown that became the longest closure of a single federal agency in U.S. history and that had threatened to halt paychecks for the department's roughly 260,000 employees in May. The bill leaves out money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, the operations at the center of the dispute, which Republican leaders moved to a separate $70 billion budget reconciliation track this week.

The deal closes a standoff that began Feb. 14 and reordered Washington's appropriations playbook. Democrats pulled support for routine DHS funding after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, during protests against the administration's immigration crackdown in Minneapolis in January. Republicans refused to accept any package that zeroed out enforcement money. The result was paired tracks: a bipartisan bill to keep airport screeners, the Coast Guard and FEMA running, and a party-line reconciliation measure to deliver the cash for deportations the White House has demanded.

What broke the impasse

The Senate had cleared the bipartisan bill without opposition more than a month ago in a middle-of-the-night vote, then watched it sit in the House while Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., publicly called the legislation a "joke." Johnson's path opened only after House Republicans late Wednesday adopted a budget resolution, on a largely party-line vote, that puts $70 billion for immigration enforcement and deportations on a separate reconciliation track running through the remainder of Trump's term, which expires in January 2029.

By starting that process, Johnson cleared the bipartisan bill for a voice vote Thursday, with no formal roll call. Trump signed it the same day. The speaker defended the months of delay by arguing the new procedural route guaranteed the immigration money would eventually arrive on Republican terms.

"We threw a fit," Johnson said. "We had to."

He added that the budget process would ensure the immigration funds flow "with no crazy Democrat reforms."

The top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, who introduced the bipartisan bill more than 70 days ago, was blunter on the floor. "It is about damn time," she said.

Cost to the workforce

DHS spans the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, FEMA and other agencies, with a combined payroll topping $1.6 billion every two weeks. The shutdown forced most employees to work without routine pay; the White House had funneled temporary money to TSA and other components through executive action, but Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, whom Trump installed as the department's leader after ousting Kristi Noem mid-shutdown, said in recent days that the cash was running out.

More than 1,000 TSA officers have quit since Feb. 14, according to Airlines for America, the U.S. carriers' trade group, which on Wednesday urged Congress to fully fund the department after hourslong screening lines reappeared at major airports. Immigration enforcement workers were largely shielded by some $170 billion that Congress approved for the administration's deportation push as part of last year's tax cuts bill.

Mullin, in a social media post Thursday, said the shutdown "NEVER should have happened."

Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said federal workers were "pleased that Congress finally stepped up to do their jobs and fund DHS," but added that "it is unacceptable that it took them this long to do so." He said federal employees are not political pawns or leverage, and "deserve to be treated with dignity and respect."

A new procedural template

The go-it-alone reconciliation strategy is the same vehicle Republicans used last year to pass Trump's tax cuts over uniform Democratic opposition. House Republicans late Wednesday adopted a budget resolution focused on the $70 billion enforcement package; the Senate has since followed. Lawmakers will next draft the actual ICE and Border Patrol funding bill, with floor votes expected in May. Trump has said he wants the measure on his desk by June 1.

The template effectively splits homeland security funding into two streams: a bipartisan, regular-order appropriation for the apolitical functions, and a partisan reconciliation bill for the enforcement arms whose conduct Democrats sought to constrain. It allowed both sides to claim victory without conceding on the underlying policy fight over how aggressively federal agents should operate inside U.S. cities.

Counterpoint

Not every Republican welcomed the split. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, during Thursday's brief floor debate, said isolating immigration money on a separate track was "offensive to the men and women who serve in ICE and Border Patrol, and are serving this country every single day." His objection underscored a hard-line wing that views any bipartisan DHS bill as a concession, even one that explicitly walls off enforcement funds for partisan handling. The reconciliation route also carries weeks of procedural risk: the Senate parliamentarian can strip provisions, and a single GOP defection in either chamber can force changes to the $70 billion topline.

What comes next

Drafting of the reconciliation bill begins immediately, with House and Senate appropriators racing to meet Trump's June 1 deadline. The bipartisan measure signed Thursday removes the immediate threat of furloughs. May Day demonstrations against the administration's policies are expected to draw crowds across the country Friday, providing the first street-level test of public sentiment as the next funding fight begins.