- - A mini government shutdown is on the horizon again, as Democrats and Republicans appear miles apart on DHS funding

Mike BebernesFebruary 9, 2026 at 11:42 PM

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The Department of Homeland Security will shut down for the second time in two weeks if Congress doesn’t pass a bill to provide it with more funding by Friday. At this point, there is little optimism on Capitol Hill that a deal can be struck in time to keep the department open.

“I absolutely would expect that [DHS is] going to shut down,” Democratic Sen. John Fetterman told Fox News on Sunday.

Democrats are demanding sweeping reforms to rein in the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration crackdown. Thanks to the filibuster, they have the power to block any DHS funding bill from passing the Senate.

“Dramatic changes are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before a DHS funding bill moves forward. Period. Full stop,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said during a press conference on Monday afternoon.

Republicans have emphatically rejected Democrats’ proposals, calling them “ridiculous” and “radical.”

The two sides are so far apart that they’re reportedly not even talking to each other about how they might find middle ground. Jeffries told CNN on Sunday that Democrats “haven’t heard back” from Republican leaders about their list of potential reforms.

“We aren’t anywhere close to having any sort of an agreement,” John Thune, the top Republican in the Senate, told reporters last week.

How we got here

Democrats' demands to reform DHS led to a brief partial government shutdown earlier this month. That shutdown ended after just four days, but the underlying disagreement that caused it wasn’t in any way resolved. When Congress voted to reopen the government last week, all other federal departments got funding through the end of September, but DHS only received enough money to stay open until midnight on Friday.

Criticism from Democrats of President Trump’s aggressive immigration policies from Democrats is nothing new, but the two deadlyshootings by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in January proved to be a turning point for the party.

Late last month, Democratic leaders began insisting that they wouldn’t let any long-term government funding bill pass unless it included serious changes to how DHS agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) were carrying out immigration operations across the country. Republicans have refused to entertain any of their proposed reforms.

Now, DHS is a few days from shutting down again, only this time the rest of the government will remain open.

What Democrats want

Jefferies and his counterpart in the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, released a set of ten reforms they want included in any bill that provides DHS with long-term funding.

At the top of the list is a requirement that immigration officials obtain a warrant signed by a judge before entering a private home or business. That had been the legal standard for all forms of law enforcement for decades under a series of Supreme Court rulings that still stand as precedent today. However, the recently reported on a secret ICE memo in which the agency told its officers they can defy that limitation and enter a private home with only an administrative warrant, which they can sign themselves.

Democrats also want to prevent ICE and CBP officers from carrying out their operations anonymously by banning them from wearing masks and requiring them to display their ID on their uniforms. Other demands include an end to racial profiling in immigration arrests, upholding use-of-force standards and a ban on raids at “sensitive locations” like schools, churches and courts.

What Republicans say

Alabama Rep. Katie Britt, who is reportedly the leading negotiator on the Republican side, called Democrats’ demands a “ridiculous Christmas list of demands for the press.”

“They continue to play politics to their radical base at the expense of the safety of Americans,” she said last week.

Republicans have also pushed back on specific elements of the proposal, arguing that they’re impractical and potentially dangerous.

"Imagine if we had to go through the process of getting a judicial warrant,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said last week. “How much time would that take? We don’t have enough judges. We don’t have enough time.”

ICE has maintained for months that it’s necessary for its officers to cover their faces to protect them from being “doxxed” by having their identities revealed, which could potentially put them and their loved ones at risk. Many within the GOP have echoed that argument recently.

“There’s just a bunch of stuff in there that’s a nonstarter, and they know it,” Thune told reporters last week, adding that requiring immigration agents to show their faces and display ID would “set them up to get doxxed.”

Rather than considering Democrat-led reforms, some Republicans are trying to go the opposite direction by pushing new hard-line immigration policies — including a bill to punish “sanctuary cities” that refuse to enforce federal immigration laws and a sweeping new elections bill that would impose strict voter ID requirements throughout the country.

What would it mean if DHS shut down?

Though the funding debate is entirely centered around immigration enforcement, DHS is a sprawling department that oversees a long list of agencies focused on keeping Americans safe.

In fact, another shutdown would likely be more disruptive to those other parts of DHS than it would be for ICE and CBP. That’s because Republicans in Congress provided the two agencies with a combined $43 billion in additional funding as part of the massive One Big Beautiful Bill they passed last summer.

Agencies like the Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration and the Secret Service don’t have that kind of financial backstop.

During the record-setting 43-day shutdown last year, DHS designated more than 90% of its employees as necessary for national security. That meant they continued working throughout the shutdown, but were not paid until it ended. Like in previous shutdowns, that led to staffing issues as workers grew impatient with missing their paychecks. Another extended funding lapse could lead to more staffing-related disruptions, particularly at airports.

A lengthy shutdown is certainly possible. Congress is scheduled to be on recess all next week. Johnson and Thune have the power to cut that recess short, but insider reports suggest that that would only happen if a deal to reopen DHS is reached.

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Source: “AOL Breaking”