Cybersecurity coordination, disaster aid to states, and pay for tens of thousands of federal workers are at risk while immigration enforcement will remain unhindered as the Department of Homeland Security barrels toward a shutdown.
Negotiations in Congress are deadlocked over immigration policy demands and enforcement guardrails Democrats have insisted on before advancing an annual funding bill for DHS. The two sides are divided on whether to pass another short-term measure to keep the department funded beyond Friday night while talks continue.
If lawmakers fail to reach a deal, DHS would keep frontline security and immigration enforcement operations running while halting wide swaths of administrative, grant, and oversight work. The funding lapse would come just months after a broader 43-day government shutdown last fall.
Under DHS’s contingency plan for a funding lapse, the latest version of which was published in September, about 23,000 of the department’s more than 270,000 employees would be furloughed.
The rest would remain on duty because their work is deemed necessary to protect life or property or perform activities required by law, or they’re paid through fees and other non-appropriations accounts.
Though immigration enforcement is central to the funding showdown as Democrats demand policy changes, DHS’s immigration agencies would remain largely unaffected by a funding lapse.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement would continue arrests and deportations, and Customs and Border Protection would maintain border operations and drug interdictions, as well as passenger processing and cargo inspections at ports of entry.
ICE and CBP have more than $140 billion in extra funding to rely on for worker pay and operations during a shutdown thanks to a sweeping tax law Republicans passed last year. US Citizenship and Immigration Services would also be largely unaffected by a shutdown because it’s funded by user fees.
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Several DHS agency officials appeared on Capitol Hill Wednesday to outline the tangible but uneven impacts of a shutdown to their agencies. Republicans called the hearing to ratchet up pressure on Democrats ahead of the funding deadline.
“Under a lapse in appropriations, FEMA will not be able to continue carrying out any missions other than lifesaving and supporting disaster response efforts,” said Gregg Phillips, who leads the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Office of Response and Recovery.
FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund would allow active disaster response to proceed, but broader grant administration and assistance to states recovering from disasters would slow, he said
The Coast Guard would continue missions tied to national security and protection of life, though administrative and support functions would scale back under the contingency plan.
The Transportation Security Administration would maintain airport screening operations, but hiring, training, and most headquarters functions would pause.
TSA Acting Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill noted that during the last prolonged shutdown, unscheduled absences among officers increased, straining staffing and contributing to longer wait times for travelers.
More than 61,000 of TSA’s roughly 64,000 employees would remain on the job under the contingency plan.
At the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, threat monitoring and critical infrastructure protection would continue, but most policy, regulatory, auditing, and intergovernmental coordination work would halt. Of CISA’s 2,540 employees on board, fewer than 900 would be retained during a lapse.
The Secret Service would maintain protective functions and counterterrorism operations during a lapse.
But deputy director Matthew Quinn said a lapse would delay contracts, hiring, and training, stall reforms underway after the 2024 attempted assassination of President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, and complicate preparations for major security events, including the 2028 Olympics.
The agency’s roughly 8,000 personnel would report for duty without interruption, Quinn said, but he warned morale would suffer if paychecks stop.
“Our difficult mission becomes exponentially harder during a government shutdown,” he said.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, has introduced legislation that would fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP, attempting to isolate the agencies at the center of the immigration fight.
The proposal has gained little traction with Republican leadership.
