President Donald Trump signed the $1.2 trillion spending package to reopen the government and temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday, ending the four-day partial shutdown.
Now, Congress has just 10 days to negotiate the DHS portion — the final appropriations bill for the 2026 fiscal year — which may be easier said than done as Democrats demand major changes to Trump’s immigration operations.
The House passed the package on Tuesday in a 217-214 vote, marking a rare bipartisan victory after days of leaders in both parties wrangling their members to pass the compromise measure negotiated by the Senate last week. All four members of Utah’s House delegation voted in favor of the bill.
Both parties had members defect and ultimately oppose the legislation, albeit for different reasons. Conservative Republicans refused to support the bill without full funding for DHS while Democratic progressives lamented there was not strong enough language reining in how federal immigration officers can operate.
The spending bill contains five of the six remaining appropriations bills for the 2026 fiscal year, funding for the Departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Transportation, and dozens of other federal agencies through the end of September. The package also contains a temporary extension for the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 13 as lawmakers continue negotiating that portion.
Those negotiations will focus on reforms for federal immigration officers, a key demand from Democrats after two fatal shootings in Minneapolis last month. However, a deal may be easier said than done as leaders in both parties have indicated they are miles apart so far on coming to a deal.
If a new spending deal isn’t passed by the new deadline, federal funding for DHS will lapse until something else is approved.
Still, the bill’s passage is a major win for Republican leaders who were forced into a scramble to get some of their most stubborn party members in line hours before the final vote.
Republicans initially planned to pass the compromise package under suspension of rules, meaning lawmakers could avoid procedural hurdles so long as Democrats helped pass the bill their party helped negotiate in the Senate.
However, House Democrats came out over the weekend to say they would not help pass the bill — putting pressure on House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to convince his members to pass the bill even if it doesn’t include their demands.
Johnson and his Republican leadership team spent days talking with members who disagreed with some of the spending provisions included in the bill, with some of those conversations even being elevated to the White House.
Making things more complicated, Republicans have only a one-vote majority as of Monday — giving Johnson virtually no room for error.
That calculus was tested when several Republicans said they were undecided on how they would vote on the trillion-dollar spending bill, spurring Johnson and other GOP leaders into action to flip their votes on the House floor. In the end, only one Republican voted no: Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie.