DHS Shutdown Ends as CISA Faces Long Recovery

The House voted Thursday to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, ending a record 75-day shutdown that forced federal cyber officials into a limited operational posture as the nation’s cyber defense agency faced mounting pressure to restore preventive services, stakeholder support and federal network defense work.

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The bipartisan measure, signed the same afternoon to President Donald Trump, funds DHS components including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Transportation Security Administration, FEMA, the Coast Guard and the Secret Service while leaving immigration enforcement funding to a separate legislative track. The vote gives DHS cyber teams their first full-year funding certainty in months after a prolonged lapse that left CISA operating under constraints and deepened concerns over the agency’s ability to support state, local and critical infrastructure partners (see: CISA Forced Into Reactive Cyber Posture Amid Shutdown).

The bill provides $64.4 billion in discretionary DHS funding and includes support for “FEMA, disaster relief, TSA, CISA and other critical programs Americans count on,” according to a Senate Appropriations summary. A separate House summary of the final fiscal 2026 Homeland Security package said the legislation includes $20 million to hire critical CISA positions focused on countering threats from China.

The immediate impact for CISA will likely provide some much-needed stabilization for an agency disproportionately impacted by reductions-in-force efforts and major budget cut threats. The agency can resume work that had been curtailed during the shutdown, including proactive engagement with critical infrastructure operators, vulnerability coordination, election security support and cyber risk reduction efforts – which officials and former staffers warned were being pushed aside.

The funding vote also gives CISA a short-term reprieve after months of disruption. The agency entered 2026 without a Senate-confirmed director, faced renewed political scrutiny over its election security work and spent much of the year trying to rebuild internal stability following deep Trump administration cuts (see: No Vote, No Leader: CISA Faces 2026 Without a Director).

But the new funding will not erase the operational strain that accumulated during the shutdown. Former officials and cyber experts have warned that CISA and other cyber teams could face years of challenges rebuilding following a major talent exodus in the first year of the White House administration.

CISA remained responsible for responding to active threats during the funding lapse, but the shutdown limited the agency’s ability to conduct the kind of preventive work that has become central to its mission in recent years.

The vote comes as the Trump administration is simultaneously seeking a narrower role for CISA in fiscal 2027. The White House budget request proposes roughly $707 million in program reductions across the agency, including the elimination of election security work and other external engagement functions that administration officials described as duplicative or tied to “weaponization and waste.”