Final FY26 Appropriations Preserves Title II-A and Title IV-A

Yesterday afternoon, the U.S. House of Representatives passed, on a vote of 217 to 214, a five bill FY 2026 Appropriations minibus that contains final FY26 funding for the Departments of Labor, HHS, Education, Transportation, HUD, State, and Defense. It does not include final FY26 funding for the Department of Homeland Security as a result of Senate Democrats forcing the Senate to remove this bill from the package over ICE’s controversial activities in Minneapolis. Instead of funding Homeland Security (which includes ICE) in this package, the bill incorporates a 10-day continuing resolution for Homeland Security that will keep it operating until February 13th.

In the final House vote, the vast majority of House Democrats voted against the final bill on the grounds that they did not want to provide even 10 days of funding to ICE without the enactment of reforms. Negotiations on reforming ICE will now begin earnest, with a very short timeframe to complete work and include them in the final FY26 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill.

The enactment of this bill ended a four-day partial government shutdown that began January 31st, when the previous continuing resolution lapsed. The final, approved minibus contains no changes to the education spending agreed to previously, leaving in place mainly level funding for K-12 programs, including Title IIA ($2.19B) and Title IVA ($1.38B).