US shutdown on track to end as House approves Trump funding deal

The partial US government shutdown is on track to end later on Tuesday after the House passed a funding deal US President Donald Trump negotiated with Senate Democrats, overcoming opposition from both ends of the political spectrum.

The spending package, which Trump has said he wants enacted quickly, now goes to the president for his signature. The House vote was 217 to 214.

Still, a more limited funding lapse looms since the Department of Homeland Security would be funded only through February 13 while Trump negotiates with Democrats over their demands for new restraints on immigration enforcement agents. The rest of the government would be funded through the September 30 end of the financial year.

A group of conservatives had threatened to use procedural manoeuvres to blockade the deal but relented after Trump demanded they vote to pass the measure.

“The president nailed it down,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, told reporters. “I’m glad we are all nails and there’s one hammer.”

The shutdown fight erupted after a US citizen, Alex Pretti, was killed in a confrontation with Border Patrol officers in Minneapolis last month. Democrats refused to pass full-year funding for the Homeland Security Department unless new restraints were placed on immigration enforcement.