The Great Republican DHS Funding Rake-Stepping Fest
The shutdown has become a debacle for MAGA.
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Democrats steadfastly refuse to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) without a series of minimal reforms. In response, Republicans have decided to refuse to fund the entire Department of Homeland Security (DHS), leaving many Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents without paychecks for a brutal six weeks.
Agents have (understandably) not been showing up for work, leading to hours-long waits and chaos at airports across the country.
Faced with a metastasizing crisis Republicans deliberately inflicted on the country, Democrats held firm. Republicans, for their part, blustered, caved, caved again, blustered more, then swiftly rushed to bludgeon their faces with each other’s fists.
For the Republicans, it was a preposterous and thoroughly damaging spectacle which left TSA still without secure or certain funding, thereby setting up the GOP for further and apparently endless exercises in incompetence and self-humiliation. But for Democrats, it was an object lesson in the ground to be gained if you stake out a strong stance, find your spine, and refuse to abandon either.
Republicans own this
The current partial shutdown battle began at the end of January following the murder of VA nurse Alex Pretti by CBP officers in Minneapolis.
Democrats — from progressives like Connecticut’s Chris Murphy to centrists like Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar — demanded a range of reforms before moving ahead with funding. Those reforms included forcing ICE/CBP to obtain judicial warrants before entering private property, prohibiting DHS agents from wearing masks, and preventing ICE/CBP from operating in medical facilities, schools, childcare facilities, places of worship, or — crucially — polling places.
Many of these demands were basically calls for DHS to simply start following the Constitution, but that was a bridge too far for Republicans. So they insisted they would not pass an ICE/CBP bill with conditions.
Republicans were probably emboldened by the last shutdown fight. Democrats in late 2025 staged a six-week government shutdown in an effort to restore healthcare subsidies for the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Republicans not only refused to negotiate, but seemed to revel in the escalating harm to veterans, federal workers, and, especially, SNAP beneficiaries after Trump moved to illegally suspend the program. Polls showed Republicans were blamed for the shutdown, but centrist Democrats didn’t have the stomach to continue. They caved in November having won nothing tangible. The base was (rightly) enraged.
This time, Democrats tried a different approach. They agreed to allow passage of all government appropriations bills except for the one funding DHS, which controls ICE and CBP. Narrowly focusing on DHS gave the GOP a lot less leverage — and Democrats even offered to fund all parts of DHS except ICE/CBP.
Republicans refused to break out ICE/CBP, however, hoping to use the shutdown of TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard to force Democrats to back down. That’s been the impasse for weeks, as TSA agents have become more and more desperate and airline security lines have ground to a halt.
But Democrats stood firm, and Republicans have become increasingly desperate. Polls suggest the GOP has been receiving most of the blame for the impasse. Trump’s approval has been slipping dangerously (he’s under 38 percent in the Fiftyplusone tracker) and Republicans are getting embarrassingly clobbered in special elections in even red districts.
The GOP’s waning fortunes are not entirely about TSA lines — Trump right now is waging an extremely unpopular war with Iran while the economy stumbles toward stagflation. But polls and election losses certainly indicate the shutdown isn’t helping Republicans. Heading into the heavy spring break travel season, Republicans have become increasingly worried and have started casting about for a way out.
Cue last week’s cluster.
Thune vs. Johnson
The inept thrashing began with Trump insisting he could unilaterally fix airport security by sending ICE agents to help TSA. ICE received so much funding in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — $45 billion — that there is still plenty of money to pay them even as TSA agents go without.
But ICE agents aren’t trained for airport security — they have no experience in operating X-ray machines, performing pat-downs, or searching bags. Photos of ICE at airports suggest many of them are just standing around, looking at their phones, or watching long lines of travelers crawl past.
Unsurprisingly, ICE agents doomscrolling have not reduced long wait times — and have raised concerns they may harass or racially profile travelers as they have targeted people in many blue cities. Also unsurprisingly, considering how loathed ICE is, a solid 53 percent of adults oppose their presence in airports, according to a Strength in Numbers poll.
As that public relations and logistics disaster was unfolding, Senate Republicans decided they were fully sick of the impasse. Sens. John Kennedy and Ted Cruz — both very conservative Republicans — put forward a plan to accept a funding deal for everything but ICE, and then use a reconciliation deal to pass ICE funding without Democratic votes. Majority Leader John Thune signed on, but Trump blocked it. Kennedy then went to the press and blamed Trump for blocking it, making it very clear that the president was deliberately screwing TSA agents.
Trump presumably hoped to use the TSA shutdown to put pressure on Democrats. But then, as he often does, he changed his mind and caved in the most illegal manner possible.
Last Friday, the president declared that he was going to unilaterally start paying TSA agents and claimed checks would start going out today … though it’s unclear whether that’s true, or whether payments will be regular. The uncertainty means it may take some time for TSA workers to return to work.
The reason no one is sure how Trump’s promise will work is in part that it’s extremely illegal. The president has no authority to make payments without congressional authorization, and Trump barely even pretended to argue that he did. He appears to have tapped a slush fund for non-specific border security needs and shrugged.
Since Trump now appeared to be willing to fund TSA, though, the Senate went ahead and decided to do its job for once, as a treat. The chamber unanimously approved a bill to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP in a late night session early Friday. Then they left for vacation.
All the House had to do was pass the bipartisan bill and solve the problem. But the House GOP figured it would rebuke the Senate by befouling itself in a humiliating manner. Conservatives balked at actually doing something minimally useful, whining and rending their garments because they didn’t immediately get the ICE funding they could get later in a reconciliation bill.
Speaker Mike Johnson (who does not have a great working relationship with Thune) claimed that the Senate majority leader had somehow been bamboozled by Chuck Schumer, and called the anodyne bipartisan bill a “joke”.
The House then passed a stopgap funding bill that would lock in current levels for eight weeks. Schumer said the bill is “dead on arrival” and that “Republicans know it” — as they’d have to, since, again, the Senate isn’t even in session to vote on the House measure.
Democrats in array
So, to sum up, Trump made sure all travelers knew he was responsible for airport delays by sending hated ICE agents to stare at them while they wait in line, then Senate Republicans publicly blamed Trump for scuppering a deal, then Trump (illegally) declared he could have funded TSA anytime he wanted, then Republicans in Congress had a massive internal fight which ended with them refusing to fund TSA and going on vacation.
Meanwhile, Democrats refused to fund ICE, then refused to fund ICE, kept refusing to fund ICE, and got to remind the public over and over that the GOP appears to hate TSA workers and wants everyone in every airport to suffer for absolutely nothing.
It’s possible that Trump’s payments to TSA agents will work and airport lines will diminish. It’s likely that Republicans — who after all control all three branches of government — will manage a workaround in which they fund the rest of DHS and even eventually approve more ICE funding, as Sen. Kennedy suggested they would.
Democrats, though, have shown they can stand on principle and paved the way for more effective resistance after the midterms if they manage to capture one or both chambers of Congress. They also, not coincidentally, enabled massive Republican infighting and dysfunction and made it even clearer, if that’s possible, who is responsible for the mess at airports.
When you fight, you can win — not everything, obviously, but more than you could if you give up. It’s a lesson Democrats, in Congress and out, should take to heart.
That’s it for today
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Thanks for reading, and for your support.
Thank you, Mr. Berlatsky.