Mullin recalls DHS workers without Congress during record shutdown

On April 11, 2026, Department of Homeland Security Secretary MMMarkwayne Mullin issued an emergency recall order directing all furloughed DHS employees back to work, citing available discretionary spending authority under 31 U.S.C. Section 1301(a) as the legal basis for funding operations without congressional appropriation. The recall applied to all DHS components, including the approximately 1,200 employees at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—roughly 60% of CISA's 2,000-person workforce—who had been sent home during the prolonged shutdown. In a CBS News interview, Mullin described the provision as allowing DHS "a little bit of flexibility ... with the dollars that were set up to allow us to do stuff just like this," framing the action as an emergency measure rather than a sustainable solution.

Multin pledged that all recalled DHS workers would receive back pay through April 4, 2026, the date of the initial shutdown trigger, with regular paychecks distributed between April 10 and April 16. This payment obligation—covering nearly two months of lost wages for tens of thousands of federal employees—was funded entirely through executive authority rather than new congressional appropriation, making the recall order legally contested even among government spending experts. The move represented an extraordinary invocation of executive spending flexibility during an ongoing congressional funding dispute, raising constitutional questions about whether the executive branch could unilaterally obligate federal funds without legislative approval.

The Antideficiency Act, originally enacted in 1870 and substantially strengthened in 1884 and 1905, is the primary federal statute governing executive spending authority and congressional appropriation oversight. The law, codified at 31 U.S.C. § 1341, explicitly prohibits federal officials from making or authorizing any expenditure from, or creating or authorizing any obligation under, any appropriation or fund in excess of the amount available in that appropriation or fund unless authorized by law. This provision implements the constitutional requirement in Article One, Section 9 (the "power of the purse"), which mandates that "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law," establishing the principle that only Congress—not the executive branch—may authorize federal spending. Violations of the Antideficiency Act carry severe criminal penalties, including up to two years imprisonment and substantial fines, making it among the most serious federal spending violations an official can commit.

The legal provision that DHS Secretary Mullin invoked to justify his April 11 recall order—31 U.S.C. Section 1301(a)—states that "Appropriations shall be applied only to the objects for which the appropriations were made except as otherwise provided by law," a principle governing how existing appropriations can be deployed during emergencies. However, Mullin's interpretation stretched the statute's ordinary meaning: rather than allowing flexible deployment of already-appropriated funds toward their original purpose, Mullin used it to justify entirely new spending (federal payroll) that Congress had explicitly declined to fund by allowing the appropriations lapse to occur. Constitutional and budget law scholars questioned whether this interpretation constituted a violation of the Antideficiency Act, particularly because the legal basis was never formally published by the administration, preventing public scrutiny or congressional challenge. The administration's refusal to specify its exact statutory authority—choosing instead to reference Section 1301(a) in passing—suggested internal legal uncertainty about whether the move could withstand judicial review.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency operates as America's primary civilian cybersecurity defense institution, maintaining a 24/7 threat detection center and defending critical infrastructure—including the nation's power grids, hospitals, water treatment systems, financial networks, and election systems—against sophisticated cyberattacks and state-sponsored threats. When CISA was furloughed during the 56-day shutdown, approximately 1,200 of its 2,000 employees (60%) were sent home, leaving the agency operating at only 38-40% capacity during a period when cyber threats continued at normal or elevated levels. This unprecedented degradation of CISA's workforce meant the agency halted vulnerability assessments on federal networks and critical infrastructure, suspended simulation exercises and stakeholder trainings that ensure defenders are prepared, and froze deployment of cybersecurity services and real-time threat guidance that federal agencies and state/local partners depend on for defense against daily attacks.

The operational gaps created by CISA's shutdown had measurable security consequences across the nation's infrastructure. The agency was forced to delay the final rule for the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA), which requires operators of critical systems to report cyberattacks to federal authorities—a delay that prevented rapid federal response to emerging threats and left the critical infrastructure community without clear reporting requirements during an extended period of uncertainty. CISA also suspended all international cybersecurity engagements, cancelled cybersecurity assessments for critical infrastructure owners, postponed advisory committee meetings, and eliminated the real-time threat warnings and incident response guidance that state and local government agencies and private-sector defenders rely upon. The loss of these early-warning systems meant that vulnerabilities in power plants, water systems, and hospitals went undetected longer, and infrastructure operators worked blind without CISA's continuous threat assessments.

The DHS shutdown that began at 12:01 a.m. on February 14, 2026, originated in a fundamental disagreement between Republicans and Democrats over immigration enforcement policy and the conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The trigger was Democratic refusal to pass DHS funding for ICE and CBP unless the agencies implemented significant reforms, including mandatory body camera use by agents, clear identification requirements for all immigration agents, and safeguards against racial profiling—demands prompted by the January 2026 deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, who were shot by DHS immigration agents during immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis. Republicans, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson, declared these Democratic conditions non-starters and refused to fund DHS without preserving unfettered authority for ICE and CBP operations, creating an impasse that neither side would break. When both chambers recessed for one week on February 12 without voting on a continuing resolution, the lapse became inevitable: Congress had no votes scheduled to avert the shutdown before funding expired on February 14.

On April 1, 2026, after 47 days of shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader JTJohn Thune announced a two-track plan to resolve the DHS shutdown that split appropriations from immigration policy reform. Under the plan, Congress would immediately pass legislation funding most DHS components—including TSA, CBP officers (though not new Border Patrol agents), CISA, Secret Service, and other major agencies—through normal appropriations procedures requiring 60 Senate votes and Democratic support. Simultaneously, Republicans would use the budget reconciliation process to fund ICE and Border Patrol separately, a procedure exempt from the Senate filibuster and thus requiring only 51 votes, meaning Democrats could not block immigration enforcement funding through the normal legislative process. President Trump announced his backing for the plan on Truth Social, calling on Congress to send him legislation by June 1 and specifically endorsing the use of reconciliation for "immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited." When Congress returned from recess on April 13, the two-track approach became the framework for ending the shutdown.

The 56-day DHS shutdown that lasted from February 14 through April 11, 2026, represented an unprecedented duration for a department-specific appropriations lapse in U.S. history, far exceeding previous partial shutdowns and raising new questions about executive power during fiscal deadlock. By comparison, the 2018-2019 government shutdown under President Trump lasted 35 days (December 2018–January 2019) and was triggered by the same underlying dispute—congressional disagreement over border wall funding and immigration enforcement—though that shutdown affected the entire federal government rather than a single department. The earlier shutdown cost an estimated $5 billion in total economic impact, including $3 billion in back pay for furloughed federal workers and lost tax revenues, and it resulted in Trump declaring a national emergency to redirect Defense Department funds toward wall construction after Congress declined to appropriate the requested $5.7 billion. The 1995-1996 Clinton-era shutdown lasted 21 days and resulted from a similar power struggle between a Democratic president and Republican Congress over budget priorities, demonstrating a historical pattern in which appropriations disputes over ideological differences trigger extended shutdowns as a negotiating tactic. The 56-day DHS shutdown in April 2026 exceeded all three previous major shutdowns in duration when counting only the affected agency, suggesting that department-specific funding lapses may pose greater endurance challenges than whole-of-government shutdowns where the economic damage and political pressure force faster resolution.