House measure funds DHS for another week

A shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security was averted late Friday night when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a compromise measure that will fund the agency until midnight Friday.

Congress must vote again on Friday to keep the agency running.

In the event of a shutdown, many DHS operations would continue running, including processing of visa applications and petitions and all Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. However, employers would most likely not be able to use E-Verify during a DHS shutdown.

The DHS funding dispute stems from President Barack Obama’s immigration executive actions in November that would provide relief from deportation to approximately 5 million undocumented immigrants. Congressional Republicans sought to scuttle the plan by defunding DHS.

The Senate passed a “clean” bill to fund DHS through the end of the fiscal year without immigration attachments, but a House measure to fund DHS for three weeks failed. The one-week funding measure passed as a stopgap.

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