The United States House of Representatives approved this Tuesday (3) a budget of US$ 1.2 trillion, ending a brief shutdown (government shutdown) that had been in effect since last Friday night (30).
After the deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, the discussion regarding the shutdown was strengthened, since the budget bill provided for funding of US$60 billion for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with US$10 billion going to ICE, the American immigration service.
The solution was to separate the funding from the portfolio and vote on the rest. The Senate reached the agreement on Friday night, but, as the project was modified, it had to return to the Chamber. The deadline for consensus was January 30th. Therefore, the government went into shutdown on Friday night.
The vote in the Chamber this Tuesday was close: 217 deputies voted in favor of the proposal, and 214 against. The text now goes to President Donald Trump for sanction, who, via social media, was pushing for the vote.
“We need to reopen the government and I hope all Republicans and Democrats will join me in supporting this bill and send it to my desk WITHOUT DELAY,” Trump wrote on Monday on his social media site, Truth Social.
“There can be no change at this time. We will work together in good faith to address the issues that have been raised, but we cannot have another long, senseless and destructive shutdown that will harm our country so much.”
The approved package guarantees federal government funding until September and guarantees resources for DHS for just two weeks. If there is no new agreement by February 13, the government could face a new shutdown or resort again to a temporary solution.
The formation of a consensus in the Chamber in the coming days, however, seems unlikely. Of the 217 favorable votes recorded this Tuesday, only 21 were from Democrats.
The party refuses to support a new budget until Republicans agree to impose limits on the actions of ICE and Border Patrol agents, following the deaths of two Americans — Alex Pretti and Renée Good — in January in Minneapolis.
