The 76-day partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown — the longest government shutdown of any kind in history — is one step closer to finally ending.

The House approved a bill to fund agencies under DHS other than Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection on Thursday, just before the chamber was on track to leave for a recess. Leaders used a process to expedite approval of the bill, which would typically require a two-thirds majority to pass, that allowed the House to pass the measure by voice vote. The bill now heads to the president’s desk, where he is expected to sign it soon. The bill had been languishing in the lower chamber since the Senate passed it in early April.

“The people who’ve worked hard to protect our nation — Secret Service agents, transportation agents, FEMA, Coast Guard — all these important agencies, they’re going to get paid. They’re going to get the respect they’re due,” Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri told NOTUS, adding that members of the Appropriations Committee can now focus fully on government funding for 2027.

Hard-line conservatives and members of the House Freedom Caucus were sitting in the House chamber when the bill came to the floor, waiting to object and prevent it from passing unanimously. Rep. Chip Roy said in a floor speech that “isolating” ICE and border patrol is “offensive” to its agents.

“While we are all unified in funding the rest of DHS, we are absolutely horrified that we are blowing up the appropriations process to target those brave men and women,” Roy said.

“If there was a vote, I would have voted no,” Roy told reporters later. “But we weren’t going to win that vote, so we decided to go and let it go by voice.”

Ending the DHS shutdown marked a rare moment of governing, following a week of fighting and dysfunction within the Republican conference.

Republican leadership held open a vote on a GOP budget resolution funding ICE and CBP until 2035 for five hours Wednesday night because hard-line conservatives were holding out their votes. But these holdouts weren’t opposed to the contents of that budget resolution: They were negotiating separately over an ethanol fuel bill. After hours of talks, including a closed-door meeting over pizza in Speaker Mike Johnson’s office, the holdouts fell in line.

For weeks, House Republican leadership refused to put the rest of the DHS funding on the floor until the ICE and CBP budget resolution, which had already passed the Senate, passed in the House. That puzzled Senate Republicans as Speaker Johnson released a statement in support of the bill on April 1, vowing action in the “coming days.”

When the budget resolution finally passed late Wednesday night, it opened the floodgates for passing the farm bill and funding for the rest of DHS on Thursday.

“We didn’t want to leave that hanging out there,” Rep. Blake Moore, vice chair of the House Republican Conference, said of the DHS bill. “That was a really responsible thing that we did yesterday, if I may say so myself, but we had to make sure that was in a good spot.”

Moore also said before the vote that passing DHS funds under suspension “might be the only option” left.

The House was up against two deadlines on Thursday that created more urgency to pass DHS funds: The administration had said it could no longer cover DHS employees’ paychecks, and the House was scheduled to begin a 10-day recess.

“I know they’re not crazy about doing it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said of the House, “but I do think there’s a point at which they are going to run out of money over there.”

Democrats had refused to fund ICE and CBP after immigration enforcement agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota in January, but the separation of ICE and CBP from Thursday’s bill gave them an opportunity to vote to open the rest of DHS.

“This is a victory for the hard-working men and women whose lives were put on hold by Republicans for 76 days,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking House Appropriations member, said in a floor speech. “It is about damn time that you come forward and do this.”