Homeland Security Shutdown All But Certain After Failed Senate Vote

The Department of Homeland Security is all but guaranteed to begin a partial shutdown early Saturday morning after the White House and congressional Democrats failed on Thursday to close the gap on a deal to rein in federal immigration enforcement, following two high-profile shootings by immigration agents in Minneapolis.

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The impasse came into sharper focus as the Senate failed to advance legislation to fund DHS and then prepared to leave Washington for a weeklong recess, effectively running out the clock before the deadline. The lapse would shutter only one cabinet department, making it among the narrowest shutdowns in modern history—the result of a single stalled appropriations bill rather than a broader collapse of federal funding as Congress has already passed the other 11 appropriations bills. The closest historical parallel dates back more than four decades, to 1980, when the Federal Trade Commission briefly became the first federal agency to shut down after running out of appropriations.

The shutdown stems from an unresolved fight over immigration enforcement, as Democrats and the White House failed to agree on whether Congress should impose new limits on federal agents in the wake of a backlash over President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis, including the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renée Good. Democrats have insisted that any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department include requirements for judicial warrants before agents enter homes, clear identification and badge numbers for agents, limits on masks, expanded use of body cameras, new use-of-force standards, and explicit bans on racial profiling. Trump has signaled openness to some changes, but Democrats rejected the White House’s latest proposal this week as insufficient.

On Thursday afternoon, the Senate voted 52 to 47 against advancing a yearlong DHS funding bill that did not include the enforcement changes Democrats are seeking. Only one Democrat—Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman—voted for it. An effort to pass a short-term stopgap measure by unanimous consent that would temporarily fund DHS and buy lawmakers more time to negotiate also failed on Thursday. With no path forward, Senate leaders announced plans to send senators home.

“At the moment, we’re not close,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota told reporters after the failed votes. He added that lawmakers would be called back if negotiations suddenly broke through. “That deal space is there,” Thune said. “This can be done.”

Still, Thune struck a skeptical tone about Democrats’ willingness to compromise. “The negotiations will continue and we will see in the course of the next few days how serious they are,” he said. 

Any deal reached would also need to pass the House, which is also set to recess. 

The standoff has persisted even after the Trump Administration sought to ease tensions by announcing a pullback of immigration enforcement in Minneapolis. Tom Homan, the White House’s border czar, said Thursday that federal authorities would scale back the surge of agents sent to the city—a move Republicans pointed to as evidence that the Administration was responding to Democratic concerns.

Democrats, however, dismissed the announcement as cosmetic and reversible, arguing that only legislation could impose lasting guardrails on federal agents. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told TIME that Democrats were not seeking to dismantle immigration enforcement but to subject it to the “same rules that apply to every other law enforcement officer at the local, state and federal level.”

When funding lapses at midnight Friday, the shutdown’s effects will be uneven. Immigration enforcement itself—the core of the political dispute—would continue largely uninterrupted. ICE and Customs and Border Protection would keep operating, buoyed by $75 billion in funding approved last year in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” that remains available.

Instead, the brunt of the shutdown would fall on other parts of DHS, particularly the Transportation Security Administration. Roughly 95% of TSA’s workforce—about 61,000 employees including most airport screeners—would be required to keep working without pay at more than 430 commercial airports nationwide. While they would not miss a full paycheck immediately, they will start to do so if the shutdown drags on for more than two weeks, potentially impacting staffing at airports as workers struggle to cover basic expenses.

“A lack of funding and predictability of resourcing will pose significant challenges to our ability to deliver transportation security with the level of excellence Americans deserve,” Ha Nguyen McNeill, the acting TSA administrator, warned lawmakers at a House hearing on Wednesday.

During the last partial government shutdown, which lasted 43 days in late 2025, McNeill said unscheduled absences for TSA employees increased and some airports saw spikes in delays as the weeks dragged on. Some employees, she told lawmakers, reported sleeping in their cars to save on gas, selling blood and plasma, and taking second jobs to make ends meet.

Other DHS agencies, including the Coast Guard, cybersecurity operations and disaster response at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, would also be affected, though many essential activities would continue under shutdown contingency plans. Overall, more than 90% of DHS’ roughly 272,000 employees would continue working during a partial shutdown, according to the agency’s September shutdown plan.