President Donald Trump has signed into law a bill restoring funding to most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ending what officials are calling the longest shutdown of a US government agency in history. The House of Representatives passed the measure by voice vote on Thursday, following its earlier approval in the Senate, drawing to a close an 11-week funding lapse that had left thousands of federal security workers without guaranteed pay and caused widespread disruption at airports across the country.

The legislation funds most DHS operations — including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which screens passengers at airports, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which coordinates responses to natural disasters — but notably excludes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and parts of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The shutdown had been rooted in a political standoff over Trump's immigration enforcement agenda. Democrats refused to fund ICE and CBP following two deadly shootings in Minnesota in January involving federal immigration officers, demanding reforms such as banning agents from concealing their identities with masks, prohibiting racial profiling, and ending raids at sensitive locations like schools and churches. Republicans rejected those conditions and insisted on full funding for both agencies, producing a months-long impasse.

A key procedural obstacle lay in the Senate's filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes to advance major legislation, forcing negotiators to craft a compromise that could win bipartisan support. The Senate passed the stripped-down DHS bill in March, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, held it back for more than a month, arguing it was inadequate without ICE funding. He relented this week after Trump publicly backed the bill and the White House budget office warned that emergency funds for non-immigration homeland security operations — including presidential and airport security — were on the verge of running out. The urgency was further heightened by a weekend shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin attributed responsibility for the crisis to Democrats, while leading Democratic voices welcomed the end of the shutdown but pressed for further action.