The Week: DHS Funding Crisis Continues | March 27, 2026

Plus: Code Pink's Cuban expedition.

THIS EDITION OF THE WEEK IS SPONSORED BY NATIONAL REVIEW MARCH 27, 2026 NATIONAL REVIEW MAR 27, 2026 ◼ For the first time in agency history, air travelers are clamoring for the TSA.   ◼ It is not easy to tell how well the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran is progressing from President Donald Trump's statements. Recently, at a rally in Kentucky, Trump said, "We've won. Let me tell you, we've won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won." No doubt the U.S. military is performing admirably, but two weeks later, we're still bombing Iran. A few days after the rally, Trump said, "If Iran doesn't FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS." But two days later, Trump said that the U.S. would hold off on striking Iran's energy infrastructure "SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS." For what it's worth, the Iranians say they're not negotiating; independent reporting has confirmed back-channel communications. Trump has claimed that the Iranians are "begging" for a deal. The fog of war is particularly thick on the president's social media account.   ◼ The Department of Homeland Security has gone without funding for more than a month. Democrats forced a shutdown in February to block funding for federal immigration agencies until the Democrats' desired changes could be secured. They seek greater restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, such as bans on ICE officers wearing masks and entering private homes without warrants. Republicans have balked at these proposals. Yet the main victims of the shutdown are the non-immigration agencies under the DHS umbrella: the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, and the Transportation Security Administration. Thousands of TSA agents are not coming to work, knowing that they will not be paid until Congress funds the agency. Extraordinary absence rates have made airport security checks even more of a nightmare than usual. This spring break season, travelers have encountered hours-long waits in security lines as screeners are stretched thin. Reports suggest that a compromise may be within reach. Good: There is no reason for airport security to be disrupted indefinitely because of a dispute over immigration policy. For that matter, as many countries have proven, there is no reason for airport security to be run directly by the federal government.   ◼ A deadly plane crash occurred at New York's LaGuardia Airport after an air traffic controller granted permission for an emergency vehicle to cross a runway. According to National Transportation Safety Board officials, about two minutes earlier, another controller had cleared an Air Canada flight to land on the same runway. The controller instructed the emergency vehicle to stop at least twice, but it was too late. The plane's two pilots were killed in the ensuing crash, and 41 people were taken to the hospital, some with serious injuries. Just over 15 minutes after the crash, a controller told a pilot that he tried to prevent the collision, as can be heard on a recording of their conversation: "I tried to reach out to [them] . . . and we were dealing with an emergency earlier, and I messed up." There is a tendency to draw every bad event into the political scrum, but so far this appears to be a human error on the ground. But Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the NTSB, said long airport security lines caused by the DHS shutdown were one of several issues that delayed the start of her investigation at LaGuardia. Another reason to end the shutdown.   ◼ Though you might have expected Markwayne Mullin to arrive at the Department of Homeland Security the way he approaches most things—with his fists up—he has hit a few conciliatory notes. During his confirmation hearings for DHS secretary, the now–former Oklahoma Republican senator committed to abandoning Kristi Noem's policy of requiring the secretary to approve all expenses exceeding $100,000, which had delayed critical payments by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Two Democrats joined almost all Senate Republicans to approve his nomination in a 54–45 vote. Mullin takes the helm of a department facing real problems, and with an immigration policy that appears to be in flux. He needs to find a way to continue enforcement of the law while putting it on a politically sustainable basis—which may mean talking to his boss about cracking down on large employers.   ◼ Early voting is already underway in Virginia, a full month before the April 21 referendum on the grotesque Democratic gerrymander proposed by Governor Abigail Spanberger and the state's Democratic legislature. The redistricting is absurdly partisan: Unlike deep-red and deep-blue states redrawing their maps, Virginia has long been a closely divided purple state that had a Republican governor as recently as 2025. Yet Democrats seek a ten-to-one Democratic House district map in place of the current six-to-five map. The potential four-seat swing could decide control of the House. House Democratic fundraisers have poured nearly $28 million into the referendum, compared with at most $5 million raised on the "no" side. But that doesn't necessarily mean this is a lost cause: With a month to go, turnout has been running higher in Republican areas, and Democratic proponents are warning that the vote will be close. There's still time to make a difference. Republican leaders should get off the sidelines now rather than wait until the regrets-and-recriminations stage. A message from Donors Trust Tax-season stress? DonorsTrust can help. DonorsTrust is the donor-advised fund provider for conservatives and libertarians. They can simplify your charitable giving and help you maximize the tax benefits. Contribute cash, stock, or other assets and manage all your giving from one account with a single receipt for your tax deduction.   Download "6 Key Reasons to Use a Donor-Advised Fund" to learn more. ◼ Governor Kathy Hochul of New York has a bad case of seller's remorse. Back in 2022, she said that Republicans were unwelcome in the Empire State. "Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, okay?" Hochul suggested to her gubernatorial opponent, Lee Zeldin, and others of his political persuasion. "Get out of town because you don't represent our values. You're not New Yorkers." Evidently, her audience was paying attention. Since 2022, around 250,000 New Yorkers have moved to Florida. Far from celebrating the exodus, Hochul wants them back. "I need people who are high net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state," she recently told an interviewer. Apparently, Hochul sincerely believes that the citizenry works for her. If anyone has a civic obligation to the State of New York, it is not those Americans who choose to live in other states. Americans are permitted to move around within our own country. This is not a flaw, or a problem, or a loophole; it is one of the core features of our constitutional order. If Hochul wishes to reverse this seemingly inexorable course, she will have to mend her ways. That will mean less cajoling and berating, and more learning and understanding. It's up to you, New York.   ◼ An immigration judge ordered Rafael Rubio, a former data analyst for the New York City Council, to be deported back to Venezuela. Rubio entered the United States in 2017 under a B-2 tourist visa, which is valid for six months. Yet when the visa expired, Rubio began working for the city council without any formal authorization. He was also arrested for assault in 2023. Prominent New York Democrats decried the decision. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called Rubio's deportation an "affront to justice." New York State Attorney General Letitia James demanded that Rubio be released. Rubio's legal team argued that he has Temporary Protected Status. In October 2025, however, the Trump administration revoked TPS for Venezuelan nationals. The Supreme Court will consider the matter in April. Rubio and his legal team, however, have until April 17 to appeal the deportation order. No word from Mamdani and company, naturally, about whether Rubio's assault was an "affront to justice."   ◼ The Trump administration filed a lawsuit against Harvard University, accusing it of violating the Civil Rights Act by failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment in the wake of the October 7, 2023, attacks. Harvard receives more than $2 billion in federal funding from the DHS alone, and as a recipient of federal financial assistance, the school is required to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, or national origin. In 2024, Harvard's own Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism released a report that confirmed that "the situation of Israeli students at Harvard has been dire" and further states that Israeli and Jewish students faced "intimidation" and "sometimes effective exclusion" from activities on campus. The Trump administration is seeking injunctive relief, recovery of funds, the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee Harvard's compliance with the law, and other remedies. The scourge of campus antisemitism deserves such exposure. A message from Donors Trust ◼ There was a time when the socialist world erected elaborate Potemkin villages to impress naïve visiting Westerners. Today, all it takes is a single luxury hotel with a gas generator. A delegation of far-left activists and influencers from the group Code Pink descended on communist Cuba and partied while the country endured blackouts. They blamed Washington for those blackouts and Cuba's other problems, such as its goods shortages, its crumbling buildings, and its geopolitical isolation. These are long-standing grievances that have grown more acute as the Trump administration has picked off, one by one, Cuba's allies abroad. Apologists for Soviet-style communism seem convinced that socialism could work if only the capitalist world would pay for it. In truth, the regime in Havana is hobbled by domestic maladministration, human rights abuses, and the poor allocation of its resources. The socialist influencers running interference for all of this misgovernment add insult to injury.   ◼ As U.S. and Israeli forces prosecute the war against Iran, the Pentagon is belatedly seeking Ukraine's support—specifically, it is seeking anti-drone assets and the Ukrainian operators who know how to use them. But Ukraine's stock is also rising in Washington because of its successes on the battlefield. Kyiv's soldiers are pushing back the Russian onslaught, having retaken about 150 square miles of territory as Russian forces have struggled to compensate for the loss of their access to Elon Musk's satellite internet services. Where the Russians continue to press, they are taking heavy losses. "Over four days of intensive assault actions, the enemy lost more than 6,090 servicemen killed and wounded," one Ukrainian general recently revealed. Contrary to Kyiv's detractors in the West, Ukraine is not a drag on NATO's allies. Rather, it's a force multiplier.   ◼ Kermit Gosnell, the infamous late-term abortionist of West Philadelphia, came to national attention in 2011 after a grand jury report detailed the "house of horrors" that was his clinical abortion practice. In 2013, Gosnell was convicted of the first-degree murder of three born-alive infants; prosecutors speculated that he had caused hundreds more deaths. His crimes were finally discovered in the course of the DEA's and FBI's investigations of the opioid crisis. Gosnell was running a pill mill out of his abortion clinic, writing fraudulent subscriptions for oxycodone, alprazolam, and codeine. His mercenary hostility to life wasn't limited to abortion but spread to the side hustle of profiting from the deadly addictions of opioid users. His life's work is a testimony to gruesome neglect in American law and society. Dead at 85.   ◼ Robert Mueller had a long and prominent public career before he was sworn in to head the FBI on September 4, 2001. He led the bureau for the first twelve years of the post-9/11 era, but his memory is now dominated by his last assignment, as special counsel to investigate Donald Trump, Russia, and the 2016 election. The Trump-Russia probe was ill-begotten from the beginning; there is no such crime as "collusion," nor was there ever a basis to investigate Trump for any crime defined under American law. But special counsel investigations take on a life of their own, so Mueller's team found other irregularities and accused Trump of process crimes—which were never charged. It is fair for Trump to be bitter at this. But he could have kept that bitterness to himself, as Bill Clinton did when Ken Starr died. Instead, on Truth Social, Trump bleated, "Robert Mueller just died. Good, I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!" This is classless and politically counterproductive, but the president can't help himself. Though Mueller made mistakes, there is much to admire in his long record. Dead at 81. R.I.P.   ◼ The '80s action star (and '90s television lawman) Chuck Norris began his career in martial arts. He was training Hollywood actors to look credibly tough on screen when one of his students, Steve McQueen, suggested he try acting himself. Norris launched into a career of playing stolid, crowd-pleasing, and delightfully indestructible heroes. His detractors attacked his impassive demeanor, the rote plotting of his scripts, and his Christian conservatism. But Americans at the time loved a guy who always fought for America, always saved the day, and always—whether rescuing POWs in Vietnam, hunting down frontier bandits, or rocket-blasting Richard Lynch out a window at the end of 1985's Invasion U.S.A.—played the same role: The Guy You Can Trust. Dead at 86. R.I.P. 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