DHS shutdown surpasses record set in fall’s government-wide lapse, with no end in sight

The Department of Homeland Security’s continued shutdown Monday surpasses the record 43-day governmentwide shutdown this fall.

The Senate approved a plan to end the shutdown six weeks before setting a new record, but House Republicans opposed it and proposed an alternative with no chance of becoming law.

With Congress once again deadlocked, lawmakers left Washington for the Easter and Passover holidays and are not expected to return until the week of April 13.

That means the shutdown will drag on for at least two more weeks while tens of thousands of Department of Homeland Security employees continue to work without pay and nonessential department functions remain suspended.

Record airport security wait times caused by Transportation Security Administration officers calling in for work are likely to dissipate after President Trump signed an executive order Friday directing the department to find another funding source to pay for them.

TSA agents are expected to start receiving their paychecks early this week.

Democrats are unwilling to fully fund the department without major changes to immigration enforcement policies that they say are needed after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens protesting in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Weeks of bipartisan negotiations yielded no results, so Senate Republicans reluctantly agreed to pass a bill that funds the entire department except U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.

The measure fully funded eight of the department’s ten agencies, including the TSA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Secret Service. It also funded the customs functions of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“Since Democrats made fiscal 2026 the year they chose to abdicate one of their most fundamental responsibilities as members of Congress, that of funding the government, this is what we have been reduced to,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican of South Dakota.

House Republicans found the partial funding bill unacceptable and instead passed an eight-week stopgap bill to fund the entire department.

“We live in dangerous times in America. Now is not the time to defund the police, or the Department of Homeland Security, at any level,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana.

Rep. James McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, called that absurd, given that Republicans approved $170 billion in multi-year funding for immigration control in their One Big Beautiful Bill Act over the summer.

These funds allowed Mr. Trump to continue his program of mass deportations during the shutdown and to pay ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents.

“Stop the misinformation that ICE is unfunded,” Mr. McGovern said.

Republicans countered that the legislation does not fully fund ICE or CBP.

“Front-line staff are primarily funded … but that leaves out civilian and support staff,” said Rep. Chip Roy, Republican of Texas.

Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, the top Democratic official at the Department of Homeland Security, told reporters that the administration has the authority to tap funding in the bill to pay ICE and CBP support staff.

“They can do it at any time,” he said.

Mr. Cuellar voted for the Republicans’ eight-week stopgap, along with two other Democrats, Reps. Donald Davis of North Carolina and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington.

“Moving away from DHS funding won’t solve ICE, and it will hurt a lot of hard-working people,” Gluesenkamp Perez said. “Ideological purity that strengthens a broken system and harms working people is not what I was sent to Congress to participate in.” »

Other Democrats voted against the stopgap and criticized Republicans for blocking the Senate bill, which passed by voice vote without any objections.

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, Democrat of Massachusetts, said Republicans knew the move would extend the shutdown because the Senate had already left Washington.

“They’re saying we want the status quo, that we’re so eager to keep ICE operating exactly as they operate recklessly and illegally and violently, that’s our priority over that of the American people,” she said.

All Republicans supported the stopgap in the 213-203 vote, although some privately expressed concerns about the plan when their leaders presented it.

“I don’t think the Senate is going to get this right. And I thought there was another way, so I expressed my opinion,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez, Republican of Florida, told the Washington Times. “But then the speaker called the play. He’s a quarterback and I’m going to follow him. But I think there was a different way.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, called the eight-week stopgap measure funding the entire Department of Homeland Security “the right thing, morally, legally and politically.”

The speaker said Mr. Thune had agreed to have a Republican attend the Senate’s pro forma session on Monday to try to bypass the unanimous consent stopgap.

A Democratic senator should oppose it. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said the stopgap “died on arrival in the Senate.”

“We have been clear from day one: Democrats will fund critical homeland security functions, but we will not give Trump’s deadly illegal immigration militias a blank check without reforms,” Schumer said.

Senate Republicans said they could use another filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package to fill and supplement missing ICE and CBP allocations in the partial funding bill.

Mr. Gimenez agreed. He said reconciliation would allow Republicans to be “much more aggressive” and ensure Democrats cannot block funding for the agency in the future.

Mr. Johnson has been pushing Republicans for months to pass a second reconciliation bill, but on Friday he called it a “very difficult task” and a “high-risk gamble.”

Tensions are high as Mr. Trump pressures Senate Republicans to eliminate the filibuster so they can reopen the Department of Homeland Security and pass other priority Republican bills without Democratic support.

Mr. Thune has repeatedly said Republicans lack the support to make it happen, but he has accused Democrats of repeatedly refusing to make deals to keep a political issue for the November midterm elections.

Democrats say Republicans refuse to stand up to Mr. Trump.

As he left the Capitol on Friday evening, Mr. Johnson wished Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democratic appropriator, a happy Easter.

She responded politely, but after he left, she blurted out her true feelings about him: “Spineless.”