US ends partial government shutdown

Washington. The United States yesterday ended a four-day partial government shutdown, sparked by Democratic opposition to funding ICE, the federal agency in charge of carrying out the government’s offensive against migrants.

President Donald Trump celebrated a “great victory for the American people” at the White House by signing the text into law. The legislation landed on Trump’s desk after passing by a narrow 217-214 margin in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Twenty-one Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the funding package, and an equal number of Republicans opposed it, rather than give in to Democratic demands to reform the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Negotiations for the new DHS budget became complicated after the death last month of two US citizens at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis, the Minnesota city that has become the flashpoint of Trump’s immigration offensive.

On Friday, the Senate approved a funding package for most federal agencies through September, along with a two-week stopgap measure to keep DHS operating while lawmakers negotiate how immigration laws will be enforced.

Trump, under whom there was a record 43-day government shutdown last year, had been pressing Republicans to adopt the spending bill and end the budget gridlock that began Saturday.

House Democrats had demanded changes to the way DHS conducts its immigration raids – with heavily armed, masked and unidentified officers detaining people without warrants – before voting on the spending package.

There have already been some concessions in the face of Democratic pressure and national outrage, following the death of two citizens. On Monday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said federal agents in the city will wear body cameras “effective immediately” in a move she said “will expand nationwide.” Lawmakers now have just two weeks to negotiate a full-year DHS funding bill.