Day 40.
That’s how long the Department of Homeland Security has been without full funding — and as of today, Washington has no deal and no serious plan to reach one.
The Senate passed a bill on Friday to reopen most of DHS. House Republicans spent the day on a conference call deciding how to kill it.
They didn’t take long.
“It’s not going to pass as it is.” — Rep. Chip Roy
“Dead in the House.” — Former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows
Speaker Mike Johnson is now floating a 60-day stopgap to fund all DHS agencies — but there’s a catch nobody in leadership wants to say out loud:
The Senate has already gone home.
The Senate bill would reopen most DHS operations. But it leaves out ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection — and that’s a nonstarter for House Republicans. Their argument: those agencies are the spine of national security. Defunding them, even temporarily, isn’t a compromise. It’s a concession.
Republicans also note that ICE and CBP funding was already addressed in the President’s earlier legislative package, with more expected in the coming reconciliation bill.
The shutdown traces to Senate Democrats, who blocked full DHS funding for weeks over two ICE- and CBP-involved shootings in Minnesota. The standoff ended Friday — not with a deal, but with Democrats declaring victory on the way out the door.
“We held the line.” — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
Senate Majority Leader John Thune offered a more candid read: “They ended up getting no reforms, but we’re going to have to fight some of those battles another day.”
Then lawmakers left town for a two-week recess.
While Congress debated process, the people doing the actual work were breaking.
More than 480 Transportation Security Officers have quit since the shutdown began. At peak dysfunction, as many as half the remaining TSA workforce was calling out on any given day — a figure a top TSA official delivered to Congress under oath on Monday.
Some agents have been selling their blood to cover expenses. Others are sleeping in their cars.
The White House is moving to fill the gap. The President has deployed ICE agents to airports to offset TSA staffing shortages and is preparing an emergency order to ensure TSA workers get paid.
The deal will come eventually — it always does. But these forty days will not be easily forgotten by the men and women who kept showing up without a paycheck. They did their job. Washington didn’t do its.
