DHS shutdown stalemate deepens as Congress leaves town for a week

DHS lost its funding at midnight on February 14, 2026, after Democrats blocked a two-week continuing resolution. This is the third partial government shutdown of Trump's second term and a targeted shutdown — only DHS, not the entire federal government, is affected. This happened because DHS appropriations are handled separately from other agency budgets.

The immediate trigger was Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration's intensive immigration enforcement campaign in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. CBP officers killed U.S. citizen APAlex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs nurse, on January 24, 2026. A federal agent had already killed U.S. citizen RGRenee Good on January 7. Democrats said they would not fund the department responsible for these deaths without accountability reforms.

Democrats presented 10 demands before agreeing to restore DHS funding. The core asks: ICE officers must clearly identify themselves and display unique ID numbers; agents must wear body cameras; agents must remove their masks during operations; ICE must obtain judicial warrants to make arrests on private property; and the agency must end 'indiscriminate' roving patrol arrests.

Border Czar THTom Homan, appearing on CBS's Face the Nation on February 15, refused to accept the mask requirement. He argued ICE officers wear masks because threats against them had increased dramatically — DHS's own press releases claimed an 8,000 percent increase in death threats, though critics note the agency did not provide the baseline timeframe for that comparison. Homan called the Democratic demands an attempt to 'shut down immigration enforcement.'

Both chambers of Congress left 🌲Washington for a scheduled one-week recess starting after the shutdown began. This means no floor vote could happen until February 23 at the earliest, while Trump's State of the Union address is scheduled for February 24 — setting up the possibility that the shutdown would still be running when the president speaks to a joint session of Congress.

DHS classified roughly 90 percent of its 260,000-person workforce as 'essential,' meaning those employees must keep working without paychecks. This includes 61,000 TSA screeners at airports, as well as Border Patrol agents, Coast Guard personnel, and FEMA staff. During the previous 43-day shutdown in late 2025, TSA administrators reported officers sleeping in their cars to save gas money, selling blood and plasma, and taking second jobs.

ICE itself continues operating regardless of the DHS shutdown. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed in mid-2025, appropriated $78 billion specifically for immigration enforcement, funding ICE operations through 2029. This means the enforcement operations Democrats are trying to reform are not actually affected by the funding lapse — only the oversight and other DHS functions are.

The shutdown is the third of Trump's second term. The first, starting October 1, 2025, lasted 43 days — the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, surpassing the 35-day 2018-2019 shutdown. The mechanism giving Democrats leverage is the Senate filibuster: appropriations bills require 60 votes to advance, and Republicans hold 53 seats, meaning they need at least 7 Democratic votes to end debate.