President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, ending a record 76-day shutdown. Agencies within the department that do not deal with immigration enforcement are now funded, including the Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration, Secret Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Congress has until June 1 to meet Trump’s deadline to pass a separate bill funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol through the process of reconciliation. Reconciliation packages can pass the Senate with a simple majority vote, meaning Republicans won’t need Democrat votes to fund immigration enforcement. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was already funded through 2029 due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. “DHS is back open, ICE and CBP will be funded through reconciliation (with NO Democrat votes) so liberals can’t play games with federal law enforcement funding,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote on X. “ To be clear, this Democrat shutdown NEVER should have happened,” he continued. “To our great, patriotic employees who have continued to protect the homeland every single day without a guaranteed paycheck—thank you. President Trump and I are very grateful to be in the fight with you to Make America Safe Again.” After two Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters were shot and killed by federal agents in Minnesota in January, Democrats made clear they would not fund the agency without major reforms to immigration enforcement. The White House and Democrats held negotiations to find a compromise, but the White House rejected multiple offers that it said put undue burdens on immigration agents.

Californians will get a chance to vote for more secure elections this November after a voter identification and citizenship verification initiative has qualified for the ballot. Following a successful signature-gathering campaign led by Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, the ballot question, if approved, would require government-issued identification for in-person voting. Californians voting by mail would need to provide the last four digits of a unique government-issued identifying number with their mail-in ballot. A new UC Berkeley poll of nearly 6,000 registered California voters found that 56% of respondents support showing ID to vote. “If Californians lose confidence in the integrity of our elections, we are at risk of losing faith in the foundation that upholds our system of government,” U.S Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., told the Daily Signal in an email. “When the majority of the House of Representatives is decided by just a few seats, like it currently is, just a few elections can shift the balance of power in Congress. That’s why I have been so motivated to support this effort, raise the money necessary to get us to this point, and fight to secure our elections with voter ID,” he added. Calvert shared examples of how close previous California elections have been, underscoring the need for election security. “It doesn’t take a large number of fraudulent votes to swing the results of an election. Last election, Republican Rep. John Duarte was defeated by just 187 votes; Republican Rep. Michelle Steel was defeated by 653 votes. I don’t know if the outcome of these elections would have changed if we had voter ID, but I know we’d have greater confidence in the result if we had better election integrity, including voter ID.” According to The Heritage Foundation’s election integrity scorecard, California ranks second worst out of all states. Their scoring is based on Californians’ ability to not have their ballot lost, stolen, or altered, and whether a legitimate vote could be negated by an “illegitimate voter.” Did you know that states like California and Oregon are still counting votes from Election Day? Unsurprisingly, they have some of the weakest election integrity in the country. How does your state rank? Use our Election Integrity Scorecard to find out https://t.co/2dTnrwccvM— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) November 14, 2024 Presently, identification is not required to vote in California, with the exception of same-day registration or conditional voting. According to VoterRiders.com, in order to register for voting, individuals “can use any unexpired photo ID or a non-photo document with your name and address.” This includes basic forms of identification that noncitizens can access, such as a driver’s licenses, state IDs, student IDs, or vehicle registration. Public housing or assistance cards, utility bills, bank statements, government checks, paychecks, or other government documents dated after November 2022 also qualify. Stefani Buhajla, a pollster with more than 15 years of experience in public policy and political communications, says voter ID will make voting easier and more secure for Californians. “This doesn’t just apply to illegal immigrants. You could very well be in the country legally to work on a visa or be a legal resident who’s authorized to be here, but that doesn’t mean you should vote, because you’re not a citizen,” she said. “But you can get all kinds of forms of ID if you fall into that ‘legal’ category, like a driver’s license.” Buhajla said Democrats want to count anybody who is residing in this country “whether they’re here legally or not, so that they can pack their congressional districts for apportionment, so they can get more seats assigned to their states.” “This is especially important in California, where you have mass immigration,” she added. “Under the Biden administration’s open borders, where anybody could come in, they did. So, you end up where the congressional districts get flooded with people who are not citizens of this country.” While some believe voter ID is a way for Republicans to make voting harder for the average person, Buhajla said voter ID would eliminate confusion related to voting in local elections, including finding the right precinct. “At least if you’ve got your driver’s license there with you, they can say, ‘No, your address doesn’t match your voter registration. You need to go here to vote.’” She added: “It doesn’t just protect the system from bad actors who want to do ballot stuffing; It also protects voters so that they don’t have to cast a provisional ballot or spend all day trying to figure out where they should be voting.”

Most people live for the weekend. Whether a student waiting for that last Friday bell to ring or a businessman finishing up his last meeting of the week, human beings desire to be freed from work. The most extreme form of this might be the way that many people long for retirement, a time when, supposedly, all work will be behind a person.  From the Christian perspective, though, work is good for the human person. Jesus Christ Himself learned how to work at the knees of his earthly father, St. Joseph, and on May 1, the Catholic Church reminds all Christians of this reality. May 1 is the feast day of St. Joseph the Worker in the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of St. Joseph the Worker in 1955, in part as a response to communist celebrations of “International Workers’ Day.” In the Scriptures, we learn that Joseph was a carpenter when Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth and the people reject him. They ask: “Is he not the carpenter’s son?” (Matthew 13:55). The Greek word translated as carpenter is tekton, which means “craftsman, artisan, or builder.” Joseph was a hard worker. He knew what it was like to be entrenched in manual labor each day. Jesus would have grown up with Joseph at the workshop, learning from his foster father. The fact that the Church designates a day to honor St. Joseph and the importance of work highlights the need for humanity to reflect on how work can sanctify us. Work first appears in the Bible during the creation stories in Genesis. We are told that God “took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it” (Genesis 2:15). Human beings were made to be in contact with and work with creation. In this way we find fulfillment as the pinnacle of creation. Then the animals were created and God “brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each living creature was then its name” (Genesis 2:19). This task shows man’s dominion over creation, but it also demonstrates that work is itself a participation in God’s creation. Work was not given to be a burden but a gift. Work allows us to create and become like God, who is the Creator. After the fall in the Garden of Eden, man’s work became arduous. However, that did not change the underlying fact that work is itself good—no more than pains in childbirth make children anything other than a gift. In fact, work’s unpleasantness and the pain of childbirth are part of the remedy of sin. They help the human person to learn sacrificial love. Work is redemptive; it teaches us to be selfless, rather than selfish. In 1961, Pope John XXIII explained that work is a specifically human activity which is both necessary and personal. In his encyclical “Mater et Magistra” (On Christianity and Social Progress), he taught that man needs to work in order to provide for the necessities of life, such as food, water, shelter, and clothing. Joseph was a witness to this. He worked long hours to provide for Mary and Jesus. Jesus saw the strength and commitment of his earthly father, who was willing to endure his labor out of love for his family. All men and women today who work to provide for their families do the same. Our work, when approached properly, is an avenue for us to sacrifice and show our love for our families. In the contemporary world, such work usually also requires us to sacrifice time away from our families in order to provide for them. Our work takes us away from them, but in that separation we can learn to love them more. Work is also personal. It is only possible because of the distinctive human faculties of intellect and will. Work binds people together. Many form their strongest relationships at the workplace. This is due to the fact that work is interpersonal. The many images of Jesus and Joseph together in the workshop testify to this reality. When Jesus was crucified with hammers, nails, and wood, he must have recalled all the hours spent with Joseph as a boy in Nazareth in the workshop. The time they spent together bound them together in love. We, too, can be strengthened by our colleagues to persevere through tough times. We can lift each other up when there are challenges in the workplace because we know that we do not go through anything alone. In these ways, we can see that work is good for us. The challenge is to not let work define us. Many people live to work instead of working so that they may live. Work can consume us. It can drain us physically, emotionally, and intellectually. Despite the temptation to make work our god, and despite the many challenges that come with working in the 21st century, let us learn from the witness of St. Joseph that work is necessary and personal. Work teaches us to love sacrificially, and it binds us together as a part of the human family. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

Senior Democratic senators told The Daily Signal that voter citizenship and identification legislation backed by President Donald Trump—the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act—has stalled amid unified Democratic opposition. “I haven’t heard officially that it is dead, but it shows no signs of life,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D‑Conn., told The Daily Signal. Democrats have repeatedly likened the measure to “Jim Crow 2.0” and argued it would disenfranchise voters. Asked whether Trump and hard‑line conservatives could revive the bill ahead of the midterms, Blumenthal predicted it would remain dormant. “It seems to be lacking any kind of momentum,” he said. Sen. Tim Kaine, D‑Va., said Democrats must stay vigilant despite the bill’s failure to advance. “Even if it hasn’t passed, there are members here and the president who still really want to do it,” Kaine told The Daily Signal, adding that an attempt could still be made to pass the measure by unanimous consent on the Senate floor. Kaine also declined to speculate on whether Senate Republican Leader John Thune would pursue changes to chamber rules, such as abolishing the filibuster, but signaled confidence that Thune would not. Republicans on Capitol Hill have previously categorized Thune’s previous efforts to allegedly bring the bill to a vote as theatrics. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D‑N.M., echoed Kaine’s assessment, saying the legislation appears driven more by only some members who want to push politics. “I don’t know if President Trump has given up on passing the SAVE America Act. We’ll see what happens legislatively between now and the midterms,” Luján said. “This feels like it’s more about the midterms than anything else.” Luján added that he and other senators have highlighted concerns about the bill’s impact nationwide. “I was one of the colleagues on the floor who shed light on how this would hurt all states, not just some,” he said. Republican House lawmakers have said Thune has urged colleagues to avoid publicly discussing abolishing the filibuster. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R‑Fla., also wrote on social media that Thune told lawmakers there would be “no SAVE America Act.” I was there I heard it. https://t.co/gCsTNqQvUs— Tim Burchett (@timburchett) April 29, 2026 When asked by The Daily Signal to respond to the claims directed at him by his congressional colleagues, Thune said he “will look for a window” to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. “We didn’t have a vote on it last week because of the budget resolution and the Kennedy amendment,” Thune added.

New York City’s democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani has already run out of other people’s money, and he’s only been in office for four months. Color me shocked. Mamdani announced in a press conference Wednesday that New York City faces a financial “crisis of historic magnitude” and asked the city council for extended time to submit his budget. What a surprise that the young mayor is late to turn in his first big homework assignment. Mamdani is correct that he faces a huge problem though. The city’s budget deficit over the next few years is projected to rise to about $12 billion. To put that number into perspective, New York City’s deficit is bigger than the entire budget of about a dozen states. Mamdani blamed this financial calamity on his predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams, of course. You can be sure that New York Democrats will return to the “blame Adams” well for some time given that they practically threw him out of the party for opposing President Joe Biden’s open border policies. Adams does deserve some of the blame. So does the entire New York City political apparatus—which is notably bereft of Republicans. But this reality is hardly an endorsement of Mamdani’s platform, at least for those not totally bought into the socialist flim-flam sauce he’s selling. Mamdani never said he’d reduce his predecessor’s spending, far from it. Instead, his entire campaign was built on giving new, “free” things away. Free childcare, free buses, and government-run grocery stores were all at the top of Mamdani’s agenda. All that free stuff doesn’t come cheap. Mamdani’s excuse for why he can’t afford to fund all these programs is that the city doesn’t collect enough money. Keep in mind, the New York City budget is larger than that of nearly every state in the union, despite having a much lower population than many. That’s still not enough to fund Mamdani’s grandiose proposals. “Years of mismanagement and chronic under budgeting, alongside a structural imbalance between what New York City sends to the state and what we receive in return, have taken a toll,” he said, insisting that the problem was one of “revenue.” In a sense this was all part of the plan. Mamdani spent his first months messaging about how he was frantically searching for money to give to you, the people. Finding nothing, he’ll now seek to do more of what he spoke about gleefully on Tax Day: tax the rich. Or at least say he’s taxing the rich while actually squeezing money out of everyone. He’s also clearly angling to get a bailout from New York State. New York City is nearly tapped out, but surely there are more people to soak elsewhere. Unfortunately, the state is running on fumes. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has been reduced to begging rich former New Yorkers living in Florida to please come back to pay for all the fraud, er, I mean wonderful government programs. This has created an interesting dynamic where Gov. Hochul is forced to play a push and pull game over money with a mayor who is quite popular with the Democratic base. But even in a scenario in which Mamdani gets some kind of bailout from Albany, the future of what was once the financial capital of the U.S. is looking murky. Mamdani is refusing to take his foot off the spending gas. His further plans put even the previous high revenue in jeopardy. And people are leaving. The “rich” certainly have been, but recent trends show that pretty much every demographic has been fleeing the state as of late (besides the hordes of Biden’s immigrant “asylum” seekers). The Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit think tank, did a study on New York City and found that after the post-COVID-19 influx of immigrants the Big Apple continued its trend of population decline. This reality is even more dire when one considers that the people leaving typically have more taxable wealth than those arriving. “Net domestic outmigration not only affects population, but also the taxable income that stays in New York,” the Citizens Budget Commission study read. “Not all income earned by NYC residents moves when they move, but some does. Furthermore, per capita income indicates that in-movers typically earn less than out-movers.  Between 2019 and 2023, New Yorkers who moved out made $68 billion more than those who moved to New York City. This includes a shift of $14 billion to Florida, $2 billion to Texas, and $23 billion to other parts of New York State.” That leaves Mamdani and his fellow Democrats trapped in an ongoing turf war over who they are allowed to pillage. As New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino—one of the few Republican officials left in the city—said in an interview with talk show host Glenn Beck, Mamdani’s ideas to get more money are “insane.” New York City is about to see a mass exodus of GIANT corporations (read: major taxpayers and employers) if Mamdani has his way. Which is a really stupid "solution" to a budget crisis. NYC Councilwoman @VickieforNYC explains:“Word came down yesterday, something about Charles… pic.twitter.com/3rLDG1oceH— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) April 30, 2026 The reality for Mamdani and his friends in the city council is that their larger budget problem can’t be solved with a short- or long-term bailout or tax gimmicks to milk every last dollar out of businesses that may not be around much longer. The problem is baked into their governing model that’s long on promises, short on examples of success. The New Era of socialism is already looking so much like the old ones. Oh well, you get what you vote for.