Homeland Security Bill Passes, Shutdown Avoided for Week

President Barack Obama on Friday night signed a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that Congress had passed just hours earlier, avoiding a partial shutdown of the department for one week. Hours before a midnight deadline, the House easily approved the funding extension after the Senate voted earlier on Friday. The bill, however, does not resolve the political stalemate over the president's planned executive actions on immigration, which would have been gutted by so-called "riders" attached to an earlier funding bill. Some House Republicans argued that Obama's planned executive actions are unconstitutional, and have vowed to stop them even if DHS funding lapses. The successful vote came after the House surprisingly rejected House Speaker John Boehner's three-week bill, in which 50 Republicans broke with their leadership over Boehner's earlier bill over the issue of immigration action. Almost all House Democrats also rejected the bill, but because they preferred a bill passed earlier Friday by the Senate, which would have funded the department for one year without any immigration-related add-ons.

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