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Homeland Security officials told lawmakers on Wednesday that a looming funding lapse could ripple across disaster response, cybersecurity guidance, and daily airport operations—while also leaving many agency employees working without pay. The warnings came as Congress approved full-year funding for most federal agencies but passed only a short-term measure for Homeland Security that runs through Friday. The House panel hearing featured testimony from officials at multiple DHS components, who laid out potential operational and staffing consequences of a shutdown.
The immediate political dispute centers on negotiations over how DHS handles immigration enforcement. Democrats have insisted that any funding bill for the department include changes to ICE operations, including requirements aimed at identification standards, the use of judicial warrants, and limits on racial profiling, among other demands. Democrats said they were still waiting to hear from the White House after rejecting an initial offer late Monday night as “incomplete and insufficient.”
As negotiations appeared to stall, Senate Majority Leader John Thune urged Democrats and the White House to reach an agreement. “I think it’s important that the people at the negotiating table double down, sharpen their pencils and strike a deal,” Thune said. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was at the White House late Wednesday and that the administration was “sending over a few terms,” adding that House Republicans should expect a Friday vote to keep Homeland Security funded.
Republicans emphasized that a Homeland Security shutdown would not stop enforcement work Democrats focus on, while other agencies would be hit more directly. Rep. Mark Amodei, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security, said that removal operations and wall construction would continue, but that Transportation Security Administration, Secret Service, Coast Guard and FEMA would take the biggest hit. Those components were represented by officials who described how a shutdown could affect both near-term operations and longer-term preparedness.
Several witnesses described the most immediate challenge as pay disruptions that could translate into staffing absences and broader service slowdowns. Vice Admiral Thomas Allan of the U.S. Coast Guard said about 90% of the department’s employees would continue working during a shutdown but would do so without pay. “Shutdowns cripple morale and directly harm our ability to recruit and retain the talented Americans we need to meet growing demands,” Allan said.
Ha Nguyen McNeill of the Transportation Security Administration estimated that about 95% of the agency’s 61,000 workers would continue to work but potentially go without a paycheck depending on the length of a shutdown. She said TSA workers had recently endured a lengthy shutdown last fall, and she warned the consequences for employees could be hard to absorb again. McNeill described reports that officers were sleeping in their cars to save money on gas, selling their blood and plasma, and taking on second jobs, and she said many were still recovering from the financial impact of the 43-day shutdown. “We cannot put them through another such experience,” she said.
Homeland Security’s cyber-defense work also drew attention. Madhu Gottumukkala, acting director of the department’s cyber unit, said a shutdown would degrade the agency’s capacity to provide timely and actionable guidance to partners defending their networks. “I want to be clear, when the government shuts down, cyber threats do not,” Gottumukkala said.
Witnesses also described how a shutdown could affect longer-term emergency planning and operational coordination. Gregg Phillips, an associate administrator at FEMA, said the agency’s disaster relief fund had enough balances to continue emergency response activities during a shutdown, but he said it would become strained during a catastrophic disaster. Phillips said that even as FEMA continued to respond to threats such as flooding and winter storms, long-term planning and coordination with state and local partners would be “irrevocably impacted,” including disruption to training for first responders at the National Disaster & Emergency Management University in Maryland.
At the Secret Service, Matthew Quinn said a shutdown might not be visible to the casual observer, but he said reform efforts and internal planning would be affected. “Delayed contracts, diminished hiring and halted new programs will be the result,” Quinn said. Rep. Henry Cuellar, the ranking Democrat on the panel, tied the urgency of the issue to the killing of two American citizens in Minneapolis, saying that legislators should consider whether border policies and enforcement are producing outcomes lawmakers intend. “When enforcement actions lead to outcomes like that, we have an obligation to ask the hard question and to make sure our laws and policies are working as intended,” Cuellar said. He also said Democrats and Republicans had been “almost there” before the second shooting changed the dynamics, adding, “I think we can get there to address that.”