DHS Shutdown All but Guaranteed as Congress Leaves Town After Dems Block Funding Deal

Congress left Washington, D.C., on Thursday after Senate Democrats voted down a Republican-backed measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security through September 2029 by a 52 to 47 vote, laying the groundwork for an agency shutdown that will take effect beginning Saturday. Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the lone Democrat in the upper chamber to join Republicans in support of the measure, and Republican Senator Mitch McConnell was absent due to a recent health complication.

Stalled DHS funding negotiations come roughly two weeks after congressional Democrats helped Republicans pass a Trump-backed $1.2 trillion spending bill to fund other agencies through the fiscal year, while only funding DHS through February 13.

The minority party's opposition to a DHS deal this week comes in the wake of continued progressive backlash to the administration's immigration enforcement and mass deportation operation, including the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis last month.

Democrats refused to back a DHS-focused funding bill this week over frustrations that Republicans weren't willing to back stringent new restrictions on federal immigration officer operations that would prohibit agents from wearing masks on the job, end roving patrols, require officers to wear identification, and enforce stricter warrant requirements for arrests, among other proposals.

The White House and congressional Democrats remain intensely divided over how to proceed ahead of the Saturday funding deadline.

One problem for Democrats amid the deadlocked negotiations? Congressional Republicans tucked into last year's reconciliation bill a legislative provision that secured billions in funding for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection through September 2029. That means that the upcoming lapse in DHS funding won't pause immigration enforcement operations or paychecks but will instead begin to inhibit other intra-agency operations, including inside the Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard, and Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The House and Senate are both scheduled to be out of town all next week.

The White House has made some immigration enforcement concessions amid the negotiations in a clear effort to lay blame on Democrats for the looming shutdown. Earlier this month, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that federal officers in Minneapolis would begin wearing body cameras — a key Democrat demand— and that the program will be "expanded nationwide" as funding becomes "available."

In another concession to Democrats, Trump's border czar Tom Homan, whom Trump dispatched to Minneapolis in early February to ease tensions over the administration' deportation operation there, announced on Thursday ahead of the vote that the administration was ending its Minnesota crackdown.

"In the next week, we are going to deploy those officers here on detail back to their home stations or other areas of the country where they are needed," Homan said at a press conference.