The budget bill was approved by the US House of Representatives shortly before, but had already been passed by the US Senate before that.
The bill, which is already 11 of 12 annual appropriations bills for the current budget year, which ends on September 30, was supported by 217 members of the House of Representatives, while 214 congressmen voted against it.
The approved budget provides funding until the end of September for almost the entire government apparatus, except for the Department of Homeland Security. The adopted compromise solution only provides this ministry with temporary transitional funding for two weeks.
The Department of Homeland Security oversees controversial anti-immigrant operations by federal agencies that have prompted calls by Democrats to cut spending on law enforcement operations.
Among other things, the allocation of funds for defense has been approved, with a total of 838.7 billion dollars allocated, including 200 million dollars allocated to the Baltic Security Initiative.
This was the second government shutdown of Trump’s second presidency. The first lasted 43 days through November, becoming the longest government shutdown in US history.
The new budget issues came after two US citizens were shot dead in Minneapolis as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants. That prompted Senate Democrats to block budget bills that would have included funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which had conducted the operations.
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