January 22, 2026
The House of Representatives just passed a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. This bill was the most controversial part of the total package of bills that needs to pass in order to avoid a government shutdown in eight days.
The final vote in the house was 220 to 207. Four lawmakers were not present and did not vote. Seven Democrats voted with republicans and voted yes and one Republican voted no along with all the other Democrats.
Now – there was some talk that Democrats were going to all vote no on this bill which *could have then lead to a government shutdown. Obviously that didn’t end up happening. 7 Democrats ultimately broke ranks and voted yes – on this new annual appropriation bill for homeland security. In case you’re wondering this bill gives homeland security a total of $64.4 billion. For the fiscal year. Of that – customs and border protection will get $18.3 billion and ICE will get $10 billion.
The Democrats said they were going to vote no on this bill because of homeland security and ICE’s dramatic escalation of immigration enforcement efforts on the streets of America. Democrats said that ICE’s behavior is unacceptable – especially in Minnesota and they believed secretary Kristi Noem and ICE didn’t needed any more money.
So now what? Well – the rest of the funding bills will likely pass in the House tonight and then the House is going to leave Washington for recess. They will be gone all next week. Then on Monday the Senate will return from their recess and will be taking up these same bills. Now – importantly here – in order for these bills to pass in the Senate they need 60 votes. That means not only will all the Republicans in the Senate have to vote yes – but seven Senate Democrats will also have to vote yes to this homeland security and ice funding bill in order to avoid a government shutdown on January 30th. I’ll keep you posted.
See how your lawmaker voted here.
