DHS Shutdown Drags On as Congress Remains Deadlocked

The Department of Homeland Security has now been partially shut down for 57 days — longer than any government shutdown in American history — while Congress has left Washington for a two-week recess without resolving the funding dispute that triggered it. More than 260,000 DHS employees have been caught in the crossfire, most of them still reporting to work without pay, as the political standoff over immigration enforcement reform shows few signs of ending [1].

The House adjourned on April 4 and is not scheduled to return until April 13 [2]. When members do come back, they will face the same impasse that has persisted since February 14: Democrats and Republicans agree that most of DHS should be funded, but cannot agree on what to do about Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection [3].

How It Started: The Pretti Shooting and Its Fallout

The shutdown's origins trace to January 24, 2026, when CBP agents conducting enforcement operations near the intersection of Nicollet Avenue and 26th Street in Minneapolis fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen. An initial DHS report confirmed that two officers fired their weapons during the encounter; multiple videos showed Pretti did not hold a weapon during the struggle [4]. The incident became a flashpoint for longstanding concerns about immigration enforcement practices.

Two days before the shooting, a broader federal funding package had passed the House. After the killing, Senate Democrats withdrew their support for the DHS portion of that package, demanding time for negotiations on enforcement reforms [5]. A brief four-day full government shutdown from January 31 to February 3 was resolved when Congress passed funding for most federal agencies — but DHS was left out [1].

When reform negotiations stalled by mid-February, DHS funding lapsed on February 14, beginning the partial shutdown that continues today [5].

Who Is Working, Who Is Paid, and Who Is Neither

Of DHS's roughly 260,000 employees, approximately 90% have continued reporting to work, most without pay [6]. The breakdown varies significantly by component agency.

Source: Federal News Network

Data as of Apr 1, 2026CSV

The Transportation Security Administration, with approximately 61,000 employees, has kept about 95% of its workforce on duty as "excepted" — meaning they must work but receive no paycheck until Congress acts [6]. TSA Administrator David Pekoske testified to Congress on March 25 that TSA employees had worked 87 days without timely pay in fiscal year 2026, with nearly $1 billion in payroll obligations unfulfilled [7].

The Coast Guard's 56,000 personnel — a mix of active-duty military and civilians — have remained at their posts. Military members are being paid through funds from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reconciliation package passed in July 2025, which provided nearly $180 billion to DHS agencies overall [8]. But the Coast Guard's roughly 8,500 civilian employees have not been paid [9].

FEMA's 22,000-person workforce is split: disaster response reservists and CORE (Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees) staff draw from the Disaster Relief Fund, but more than 4,000 FEMA employees are working without wages [10]. The Secret Service, with 8,200 employees, has kept 94% working; sworn agents are paid, but civilian support staff are not [6]. CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has 2,341 employees, of whom 888 are designated as excepted and working without pay [6].

One CBP employee estimated that about 9,000 civilian workers across that agency have been forced to work without compensation, even as law enforcement officers receive paychecks funded through the reconciliation bill [11].

TSA: The Most Visible Crisis

The shutdown's most publicly visible consequence has been at airport security checkpoints. TSA has lost more than 480 transportation security officers since the shutdown began, with daily callout rates — the percentage of officers who do not report for their scheduled shifts — climbing from a pre-shutdown baseline of 4% to a national average of 11% by late March [7]. At some airports, callout rates have exceeded 40% to 50% on certain days [7].

Source: TSA Congressional Testimony

Data as of Mar 25, 2026CSV

Wait times have broken records. Houston's William P. Hobby Airport saw lines exceed three hours during spring break travel [12]. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport have reported similar conditions [12]. Some TSA officers have reportedly resorted to selling blood and plasma, sleeping in their cars at airports to save gas money, and taking second and third jobs [7]. Several airports have organized public donation drives, asking travelers to contribute grocery store and gas gift cards to support screening officers [7].

On March 17, the White House issued a presidential memorandum directing the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to explore mechanisms for paying TSA officers [13]. On April 6, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin ordered all furloughed DHS staff recalled to duty with instructions that employees would be returned to paid status [14]. The legal and funding basis for this directive remains unclear, since appropriations authority still has not been enacted by Congress.

Coast Guard and Secret Service: Missions That Cannot Pause

Unlike agencies whose operations can be scaled back, the Coast Guard and Secret Service carry out missions that have no legal authority to stop, even without appropriations.

Vice Admiral Thomas Allan, the Coast Guard's acting vice commandant, testified that "shutdowns cripple morale" and that the funding lapse has created "severe and lasting challenges for the Coast Guard's workforce, operational readiness, and long-term capabilities" [15]. The service has curtailed training, grounded some aircraft, and accumulated more than 5,000 unpaid utility accounts, putting critical infrastructure in what Allan described as "imminent danger" of widespread utility shutoffs and fuel delivery refusals [16].

The Secret Service, meanwhile, has paused a major recruitment and reform initiative that was underway before the shutdown began [10]. These reforms had been prompted by a series of security lapses in 2024 and 2025.

The Legislative Stalemate: What Each Side Wants

The policy dispute at the center of the shutdown is not about whether to fund DHS — majorities in both chambers reportedly support doing so — but about the conditions attached to immigration enforcement agencies.

Democratic demands center on reforms to ICE and CBP operations, catalyzed by the Pretti shooting. These include requiring body cameras for enforcement officers, prohibiting agents from wearing masks during operations, limiting daily asylum application processing caps, and ensuring access to legal representation for asylum seekers [3][5]. Democrats have proposed five separate resolutions to reopen DHS; Republicans blocked all five in the Senate [1].

Republican priorities include maintaining full funding for ICE and CBP without operational restrictions, increased border wall construction, enhanced surveillance technology, and hiring additional Border Patrol agents [3]. Senate Republicans have offered seven proposals for continuing resolutions to fund all or parts of DHS; Democrats blocked all seven [1].

On March 26, Senate Democrats and Republicans reached a bipartisan agreement to fund DHS except for ICE and the Border Patrol, effectively separating the immigration enforcement debate from the rest of the department [17]. The Senate passed this measure unanimously on April 5 [2].

House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to bring the Senate bill to the floor [17]. Instead, House Republicans passed a 60-day continuing resolution that would fund all of DHS through May 22, 2026 — a bill Democrats oppose because it does not address their enforcement reform demands [18]. The two chambers adjourned without reconciling their competing approaches.

Procedural Tools: Why Hasn't a Vote Been Forced?

Given that bipartisan majorities appear to exist for at least a partial funding solution, the question of why congressional leadership has not forced a floor vote is a recurring frustration.

House Democrats launched a discharge petition — a procedural mechanism that, if signed by a majority of the full House (218 members), forces a bill to the floor regardless of the Speaker's wishes. As of early April, 205 of 214 Democrats had signed, meaning they needed at least 13 more signatures, including from at least four Republicans [19]. No Republican has signed.

Democrats also attempted to use the "previous question motion," a procedural tool that, if defeated, would allow the minority party to control the floor temporarily and bring an alternative bill for a vote [20]. This effort also fell short, requiring near-total Republican defections that did not materialize.

In the Senate, individual senators can block unanimous consent agreements, which has prevented quick procedural shortcuts. The Senate's passage of its own bill on April 5 was notable precisely because it achieved unanimity — but the bill has no force until the House acts [2].

The continuing resolution passed by the House could not advance under regular order, which requires a procedural vote with near-total unanimity among the majority party [20]. The result is that each chamber has passed its own bill, but neither will accept the other's version.

Historical Context: Longer Than 2018–2019

The 2018–2019 government shutdown, which lasted 35 days over border wall funding during President Trump's first term, was the previous record holder [1]. The current DHS shutdown surpassed it on March 21 and, on March 29, also passed the 43-day shutdown that began on October 1, 2025 — another funding dispute during Trump's second term [1].

The 2018–2019 shutdown affected roughly 800,000 federal employees across multiple departments. The current shutdown is narrower in scope — affecting only DHS — but deeper in its concentration of impact on a single agency [1]. And unlike the 2018–2019 shutdown, which ended with a temporary continuing resolution brokered after TSA callout rates spiked at airports, the current crisis has persisted well past the point where similar operational pressures would have previously forced action.

The Constitutional Question: Governance by Hostage-Taking

Legal scholars and lawmakers across the political spectrum have raised concerns that using appropriations as leverage for policy demands — regardless of which party does it — erodes congressional authority over time.

The Constitution's Appropriations Clause states that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law," placing the power of the purse squarely with Congress [21]. Historically, this power was understood as a check on executive action, modeled on Parliament's use of spending authority to constrain the Crown [21].

But the modern practice of allowing funding lapses to force policy concessions inverts this logic. As the Brookings Institution has noted, the annual appropriations process gives Congress leverage over executive branch policy, with appropriations statutes often including provisions that presidents accept as a condition of continued operations [22]. When that process breaks down into shutdown brinkmanship, the leverage shifts from a deliberative tool to a blunt instrument that damages the government's own operations.

Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, has argued that Congress should "fulfill its constitutional duty and end the political sideshow of shutdowns," characterizing the practice as a failure of institutional responsibility regardless of partisan advantage [23]. The Harvard Law School's assessment of shutdown dynamics notes that funding gaps did not produce actual shutdowns until 1980, when Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued opinions interpreting the 1884 Antideficiency Act to require cessation of non-essential operations during lapses [24]. The shutdown mechanism, in other words, is not constitutionally mandated — it is a product of legal interpretation layered onto statutory requirements.

Secondary Economic Damage: Contractors and Communities

Unlike federal employees, who are guaranteed back pay under the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, government contractors have no such protection. During shutdowns, stop-work orders halt contractor operations, invoices go unpaid, and workers — often employed by small businesses — lose income with no guarantee of recovery [25].

The National League of Cities warned that the DHS shutdown shifts "operational, financial and coordination responsibility onto local governments," particularly in communities near DHS facilities and in border cities where federal funding for migrant sheltering has been paused [26]. Delays in FEMA reimbursements for prior disasters ripple through local economies, straining municipal budgets in communities still recovering from recent hurricanes and wildfires [26].

Coast Guard vessel inspections and regulatory approvals, which are required for commercial maritime operations, have slowed or stopped, creating cascading delays for shipping companies and port-dependent economies [10]. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that DHS's FY2025 base funding was $65 billion, with an additional $22.5 billion in the Disaster Relief Fund [8]. The daily cost of deferred wages alone — for roughly 230,000 employees working without pay — runs into the tens of millions of dollars, obligations that the government will eventually have to make whole.

Union Leaders Speak Out

Federal employee unions have been among the most vocal critics of the shutdown, speaking for career officials who cannot make public political statements.

Doreen Greenwald, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said that "these frontline employees have had to wonder whether they'll be able to pay their mortgage or buy groceries" and demanded Congress find a bipartisan solution immediately [27]. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said that "AFGE members are tired of being forced on this roller coaster every time their elected officials fail to do their jobs" [27].

FEMA's Victoria Barton, associate administrator for External Affairs, warned that "with hurricane season approaching, each day of this shutdown increases the risk that a catastrophic disaster could occur while FEMA's capacity to respond and support recovery is diminished" [10]. The Disaster Relief Fund, FEMA's primary mechanism for responding to emergencies, is "rapidly depleting" [10].

What Happens Next

The House returns from recess on April 13. The most direct path to ending the shutdown would be for the House to pass the Senate's bill funding DHS except for ICE and CBP, or for the two chambers to negotiate a conference agreement. A discharge petition remains mathematically possible but politically unlikely without Republican signatories.

The continuing resolution passed by the House — funding all of DHS through May 22 — remains in the Senate, where Democrats have signaled opposition. If neither bill moves, the shutdown will continue into its third month.

Meanwhile, the operational damage compounds. Every day without pay makes it harder for DHS to retain trained personnel. Every day without full funding makes it harder for FEMA to prepare for hurricane season, for the Coast Guard to maintain its fleet, and for CISA to defend against cyberattacks. The political debate in Washington is about immigration enforcement. The practical consequence is a national security agency running on fumes.