Twenty-seven days into a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, Senate Democrats again killed a bid to reopen the agency, and they admit why. They refuse to fund immigration enforcement.
The standoff is no longer just a Washington budget fight. TSA agents are missing paychecks. Airport lines are swelling. More than 300 security officers have quit. And Republicans warn that an active Iranian threat makes the shutdown dangerous, not just inconvenient.
Yet Democrats keep voting no, not because they oppose funding airports or disaster relief, but because they want to strip ICE and Customs and Border Patrol out of any deal. They want to dismantle DHS piece by piece until they get the immigration “reforms” they demand. That is not negotiation. It is hostage-taking dressed up as principle.
Fox News Digital reported that Senate Republicans accused Democrats of trying to fund everything at DHS except immigration operations. Throughout the day, Democrats offered individual bills to fund TSA, FEMA, and other slices of the department, while carving out ICE and Border Patrol.
Every attempt from both sides was blocked. Republicans refused the piecemeal approach. Democrats refused to fund DHS as a whole.
Just The News detailed the procedural vote: 51-46, short of the 60 needed to advance the House-passed DHS funding bill. Only one Democrat, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans.
One Democrat out of the entire caucus found the courage to fund homeland security during a shooting war with Iran. Let that sink in.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., offered a DHS funding bill that deliberately excluded ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. She told Fox News Digital the Republican criticism was “not true,” then immediately confirmed it:
“It was funded by the [‘One Big, Beautiful Bill,’] and we have told them they’re not going to fund ICE until there are reforms to ICE.”
She added: “We have made that clear. We put them out there, and they are pretending to just ignore that.”
Nobody is ignoring it. That is exactly the problem. Democrats are openly conditioning homeland security funding on gutting immigration enforcement, a pattern that echoes earlier fights over migrant programs designed to block deportation.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer framed the Democratic position differently. He said:
“We don’t have to tie that disagreement up and use people at the airports and American citizens as hostages.”
But Republicans have offered a clean way out. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., pointed out that the GOP tried multiple times to pass short-term, two-week continuing resolutions that would fund all of DHS while ICE negotiations continued:
“I assume the Democrat leader is aware of the fact that we have tried repeatedly to [fund everything temporarily] to allow the negotiations over the ICE budget to continue.”
Democrats blocked every one of those offers.
This is not an abstract policy dispute. The DHS shutdown, which the New York Post reported began on February 14, has left TSA workers and other DHS employees without pay for nearly a month. Major airports in Denver and Seattle started seeking donations and food support for unpaid screeners.
Denver International Airport posted on social media: “Support the dedicated TSA employees working without pay by donating $10 and $20 grocery store and gas gift cards.”
That is where we are. Airport workers begging for grocery gift cards because Senate Democrats won’t fund the government unless they get to defund ICE.
Newsmax noted that TSA reported more than 300 officers of the roughly 50,000 working at U.S. airports have quit since the shutdown began. Workers were set to miss their first full paycheck. Spring break travel season is underway, and staffing shortages are growing.
The people Democrats claim to champion, working-class government employees, are the ones suffering most.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., warned that the shutdown comes at the worst possible time. He pointed to Iranian sleeper cell threats and said:
“And that’s at a time when our homeland is under attack, all warning lights are flashing red, and they want to peel apart, piece by piece, the Department of Homeland Security, the comprehensive department of our government to protect the American people, because they want to stand with illegal immigrant criminals.”
As the Washington Times reported, Barrasso stated plainly during an earlier vote: “Now that America has struck Iran, the number one threat to our homeland is the threat of terrorism.” Democrats blocked that funding attempt, too, the third time in a row.
Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., argued that carving out ICE funding would return Congress to the “defund the police” era. She drew a red line against the Democratic carveout proposals.
She is right. The logic is identical. Strip funding from the enforcement arm you dislike, then claim you support “public safety” in the abstract.
Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., tried to force a vote on a standalone TSA funding bill and accused Republicans of blocking it. She said Republicans:
“don’t care about their constituents, the traveling public, and the folks who work there who are not part of this discussion or this argument.”
Rosen also claimed: “It says the Republican priorities are just for Donald Trump and no one else.”
But the record shows the opposite. Republicans offered to fund all of DHS temporarily, including TSA, while talks continued. Democrats said no. The only reason TSA workers lack paychecks is that Democrats refuse to approve any bill that also funds ICE.
Here is what the last 27 days have produced:
All because Senate Democrats refuse to fund the agencies that enforce immigration law.
Schumer tried to frame the Democratic position as modest. He said: “Democrats just want ICE to behave like any police department in America and use warrants and not wear masks.”
That framing hides the leverage play. Democrats are not filing reform legislation and debating it on the merits. They are holding the entire Department of Homeland Security hostage, TSA, FEMA, Coast Guard, and all, to extract concessions on immigration enforcement during a time of active foreign threats.
This is the “defund” movement repackaged for 2026. Fund the parts of government you like. Starve the parts that enforce laws you oppose. Then blame the other side when workers suffer.
When the lights are flashing red and the people who protect airports can’t feed their families, voters will remember who kept the doors shut, and why.
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