WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security shut down this weekend as the White House and Democratic leaders continued to discuss changes to U.S. immigration enforcement after federal agents killed two American citizens in Minnesota last month.
The two sides have continued to trade offers, signaling some hope for an agreement. But it remains unclear which Democratic demands the White House will agree to and Congress left Washington on Thursday without a deal.
With Congress out of town, DHS’s funding formally lapsed at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. That means that federal employees at agencies such as FEMA, the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard won’t be paid, though most of them will continue showing up for work because their jobs are considered critical.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, which are at the center of the parties’ dispute, will be even less affected by the shutdown. Employees at both agencies are expected to continue working and to continue getting paid, since those agencies still have access to $75 billion in funding approved last year in President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
The House and Senate aren’t scheduled to return until Feb. 23, raising the prospect of a DHS shutdown for at least 10 days. But they could return sooner if there’s a bill to vote on.
“I have let people know to be available to get back here if there’s some sort of a deal they strike to vote on it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said before members left.
On Thursday, Senate Republicans failed to advance legislation to fund DHS for the rest of the fiscal year by a vote of 52-47, falling far short of the 60 needed to clear a filibuster. The only Democrat joining them was Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
After that, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., sought unanimous consent to pass a stopgap bill to keep funds flowing for two weeks while the two parties continued to negotiate. That was blocked by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., on behalf of Democrats, who have made clear they won’t accept another short-term bill without reforms.
“The path forward is simple: Negotiate serious guardrails that protect Americans, that rein in ICE, and stop the violence,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters. “Americans are watching what’s happened in neighborhood after neighborhood across the country. They know it’s wrong. They know it’s excessive. And they want Congress, the Senate, to fix it.”
While neither side has gotten into specifics of the ongoing talks, Democrats released a set of 10 demands last week that included requiring agents to wear identification, get judicial warrants to enter private property and stop wearing masks.
A senior White House official told reporters on Thursday that Democrats have rejected the White House’s latest counterproposal on reforms to immigration enforcement.
“We’re not going to negotiate in public,” the official said, while adding that a “particularly challenging aspect” of Democrats’ demands is to end arrests without judicial warrants. “The administration remains interested in working with these guys in good faith, but we will not be held hostage on an issue the president was elected on,” the official said.
Schumer similarly said: “I’m not going to negotiate in public and get into the details.” But he said the White House needs to accept more than it currently is: “Their proposal is not serious, plain and simple. It’s very far apart from what we need.”
While blaming Democrats for a shutdown, top Republicans warned that the lapse in funding would have no bearing on ICE and Trump’s other immigration enforcement efforts.
“The things they want to shut down aren’t going to shut down,” said House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla. “ICE is fully funded. The Border Patrol is fully funded. What they’re doing is hurting TSA agents, hurting air traffic controllers that would get a pay raise, keeping men and women from the Coast Guard from getting paid, making sure we can’t fully fund FEMA.”
Republicans have argued that changes are already being made in response to the Minneapolis killings. Trump sent border czar Tom Homan to replace Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino in Minneapolis. DHS said it was acquiring and deploying body cameras for its officers in the field, another of Democrats’ initial demands. On Thursday, Homan said the Trump administration was ending its immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota.
“This is all politics. There’s no serious policy issue here they’re trying to achieve, or going to achieve this way,” Cole said of the shutdown.
This DHS shutdown is much narrower than the historic 43-day shutdown last fall, which affected every federal agency, furloughed hundreds of thousands of workers without pay, impacted national parks and caused some disruptions at airports.
That’s because every department apart from DHS is fully funded through September. And unlike that battle, when the White House refused to enter into a negotiation with Democrats over funding for the Affordable Care Act, the two sides are talking this time.
While Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, a funding bill requires 60 votes to break a Senate filibuster. And Democrats feel emboldened to press for reforms to ICE and CBP by the recent backlash to the Trump administration’s handling of immigration enforcement.
A new NBC News poll released this week found that public approval of Trump’s handling of “border security and immigration” has taken a nosedive. Just 40% of U.S. adults said they approve, while 60% said they disapprove. That’s a shift from last June, when 51% said they approve and 49% said they disapprove.
“We want to fund the Department of Homeland Security, but only a department that is obeying the law,” Murphy said.
