DHS Funding Lapse Becomes Longest Partial Government Shutdown on Record

The lapse in funding for the Department of Homeland Security became the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history on Sunday, its 44th day, NBC News reported. It passed the record set last fall, when the whole government went without funding from October until mid-November. This time the rest of the government is funded, and the shutdown began Feb. 14, NBC News said.

Talks suffered a setback Friday. The Senate passed a bipartisan bill early that day to fund all of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, and House Republicans rejected it, with Speaker Mike Johnson calling it “a joke,” according to NBC News. CBS News also reported the House rejected the bill. The House instead passed its own bill to fund the entire department, including ICE, for 60 days, CBS News reported. NBC News said that bill has no viable path in the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats and need Democratic votes to reach 60. Democrats are demanding guardrails on immigration enforcement before funding ICE, NBC News said. The Senate is out until April 13 and the House until April 14, according to NBC News and NPR.

The most visible effect is at airports. TSA officers have worked unpaid, leading to hundreds of resignations and thousands of call-outs, NBC News reported, with some security lines stretching for hours. TSA Acting Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told lawmakers last week that more than 480 workers had quit and absences reached as high as 40% at some airports, NPR reported; CBS News put the number who quit at 500. About 50,000 transportation security workers have missed multiple paychecks, NPR said. President Donald Trump signed an order Friday directing DHS to pay TSA workers from existing funds, with paychecks expected as early as Monday, a DHS spokesperson said, per NBC News. NPR noted it remains unclear where the money would come from.

Border czar Tom Homan said Sunday that ICE agents deployed to airports a week ago will keep helping “until the airports feel like they’re 100%,” he said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” He told CNN the agents check identification and “plug other security holes” so remaining TSA staff can focus on tasks requiring more training, NPR reported. Asked whether ICE would leave once TSA is paid, Homan said “we’ll see,” depending on how many TSA agents return, NPR said. He said wait lines in Houston had dropped by about half.

ICE and CBP are operating despite the shutdown because they received an influx of money from the 2025 tax and spending law, while the Coast Guard’s active-duty members are paid from discretionary funds, and FEMA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are unfunded, CBS News reported. Secret Service personnel are being paid.

Homan rejected Democrats’ demands for immigration enforcement changes, saying “we already made those changes” and that the House-backed bill includes $120 million for more body cameras. “If they want to change the law, change the law. We’re enforcing laws they enacted,” he said, per CBS News. Democrats say they will not pass a DHS budget without reforms; they hailed the Senate-passed bill as a victory because it would not fund ICE and would leave room for negotiations, CBS News reported. Homan also said ICE is not detaining people in churches or schools, though CBS News noted the administration allowed arrests at such places in January 2025. Markwayne Mullin was sworn in last week as DHS secretary, replacing Kristi Noem, CBS News said.