U.S. Coast Guard MH-60T Jayhawk aviators, assigned to Sector Southeastern Alaska and U.S. Arctic out of USCG Air Station Sitka, perform preflight procedures before conducting flight operations in support of SAREX 2026, April 13, 2026. (Alejandro Peña/Alaska National Guard)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a bill funding most of the Department of Homeland Security within hours of it clearing the House on Thursday, ending a 76-day shutdown.
The department had been shut down since Feb. 14, making it the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history. Democrats objected to funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.
Senate Republicans struck a deal on April 1 to fund the rest of DHS except those two agencies, but House Republicans rejected the plan.
Trump announced this month he would sign an executive order to pay all DHS workers who have gone without paychecks during the record-long partial government shutdown.
House leaders finally took it up on Thursday ahead of a 12-day break, and after the White House requested the bill pass immediately.
“In spite of our razor thin, historically small majority, House Republicans continue to deliver for the American people,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
The funding provides money for the Coast Guard.
“The reality today is the Coast Guard is operating in a crisis,” Adm. Kevin Lunday, the service’s commandant, told lawmakers on Tuesday. “This is needlessly harming our people and hollowing out our readiness.”
Thousands of personnel moving stations this summer are not receiving advance allowances, forcing them to take on debt, take out loans or deplete personal savings, he said. Some service members are delaying medical treatments due to the uncertainty over pay.
The service owes more than $300 million in unpaid obligations, CBS News reported. With thousands of utility bills overdue, totaling $5.2 million, duty stations and housing worldwide are facing service shutdowns.
Among them are missed payments for cloud and satellite communications services that threaten to sever vital command-and-control links, Adm. Thomas Allan, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, told House members in March.
It ceased activities that do not protect human life or property from imminent danger, including routine patrols and fisheries enforcement. Many preparations for this summer’s World Cup and America’s 250th birthday celebrations have also been paused, he said.
DHS is the third-largest department of the federal government, Johnson said, which includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation Security Administration and the Secret Service.
