(The Center Square) – With less than 48 hours until the funding stopgap for the Department of Homeland Security expires, a hyper-partisan Congress faces limited options to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Senate Democrats say they will reject any Homeland Security funding bill – the only fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill that isn’t yet law – unless it heavily restricts how DHS can conduct immigration enforcement.
But Republicans have condemned Democrats’ list of ultimatums, pointing out that a partial shutdown wouldn’t affect Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations due to the $75 billion in extra funding it received last year.
Instead, agencies like FEMA, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service and the Transportation Security Administration will feel the strain.
In a congressional hearing Wednesday that focused on the potential impacts of a shutdown on those agencies, Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., reminded lawmakers that letting DHS funding lapse “will not achieve the objectives Democrats claim to seek.”
“No matter what Democrats do or say, immigration enforcement will continue,” Cole said. “But if they persist in holding government funding hostage to force their third shutdown in recent months, it will be other critical components of national security that will be harmed.”
TSA Deputy Administrator Ha McNeill told lawmakers that many TSA agents are still financially reeling from the impact of the previous government shutdown that lasted a record 43 days.
“[S]hutdown and funding uncertainties have real and measurable impacts on recruitment, retention, and employee morale,” McNeill stated. “Furthermore, a shutdown would impact TSA’s technology deployment timelines. A shutdown would delay technology improvements and deployments, preventing us from giving our workforce the tools they need to do their jobs.”
Federal employees deemed “essential” – including TSA agents and some members of FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service – must work without pay during a shutdown, while the rest are furloughed.
While those agencies won’t shutter, they will cease nonessential operations, which can have both immediate and long-term negative impacts, Vice Admiral Thomas Allan, the Coast Guard’s Vice Commandant, told lawmakers.
“Although missions like law enforcement, national defense, and emergency response continue, a funding lapse has severe and lasting challenges for the Coast Guard's workforce, operational readiness, and long-term capabilities,” Allan said in prepared statements, mentioning deferred maintenance and backlogs in supplies.
“We are unable to pay our contractors, including small businesses that rely on timely payment to survive,” he added. “We cease activities that do not protect the safety of human life or property from imminent danger, including routine patrols, as well as some fisheries enforcement, maintenance of aids to navigation, and commercial vessel safety inspections.”
Despite the agency heads pleading for funding, both parties are still at a stalemate as Democrats refuse to budge on their demands and Republicans refuse to accept them.
Hoping to buy more time to negotiate, Republican leaders have drafted a four-week Continuing Resolution.
But House Appropriations Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., introduced on Wednesday another alternative to preventing a partial shutdown: funding all DHS agencies except ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot be abolished, but I will not provide a single dime of funding until we see radical changes in how it operates,” DeLauro told the committee. “If Republican leadership blocks this legislation from moving forward, they are responsible for any shuttered agencies, furloughed workers, missed paychecks, or reduced services.”
DeLauro’s counterproposal would also exclude ICE and CBP from DHS’s transfer authority to prevent the department from bypassing congressional intent.
It is unclear how many, if any, Republicans will support the bill. House Republicans still feel jilted that the Senate is recrafting the Homeland Security bill, while Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is still expressing optimism that the parties can reach a compromise.
