By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON, Feb 13 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was on track for a partial shutdown when its annual funding expires at midnight EST on Friday, after Republicans and Democrats failed to reach a deal on immigration enforcement reforms.
While some “non-essential” workers were expected to be put on leave, the Trump administration’s intensive migrant deportation operations were likely to continue, along with most other domestic federal security programs.
Republican President Donald Trump, in remarks to reporters on Thursday, attacked congressional Democrats’ push for new constraints on immigration agents, underscoring a gulf between the two parties that could point to a prolonged shutdown.
Asked on Friday whether he would personally be involved in DHS shutdown talks, told reporters at the White House: “I will,” but gave no other details. “We’re talking,” he said.
“We have to protect law enforcement,” including ICE and CBP agents, he added. On Thursday, Trump accused Democrats of wanting to put agents “in a lot of danger.”
Democrats argue they want federal immigration agents to abide by the same rules guiding police forces across the country that are aimed at protecting the public from overzealous law enforcement activities.
Even without an injection of new money through September 30, DHS’s controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection operations have a separate funding stream of over $135 billion, the result of Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” enacted July 4.
Included in the DHS spending bill that is stuck in Congress, which has begun a 10-day recess, is funding for the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency.
FEMA, however, will have $7 billion available during the shutdown in its disaster relief fund, which experts say is roughly enough to last for two months. The shutdown beginning on Saturday comes on the heels of a record-long, 43-day government disruption late last year because of a battle in Congress over extending a federal health insurance subsidy.
Democrats in Congress have refused to vote for a fiscal 2026 DHS funding bill until Republicans go along with a series of reforms to tighten controls over ICE and CBP.
Late on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, told reporters there had been some progress toward a deal on at least one of the Democrats’ proposals: requiring ICE and CBP agents to remove the masks they wear while seeking migrants for arrest and deportation.
Public outrage over those masks and other aggressive actions against protesters in Minneapolis — including the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti — and other U.S. cities prompted Democrats’ call for reforms.
Republicans had also hoped that a DHS announcement on Thursday that it was ending its deportation surge operation in Minneapolis would have persuaded Democrats to back the annual spending bill for DHS.
They were wrong, as only one of the 47-member Senate Democratic caucus voted for the bill on Thursday.
On Friday, Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire told CNN in an interview that even with the ICE-CBP withdrawal from Minneapolis, there were no guarantees that DHS agents would not now move to other cities, as Trump has hinted, or stop searching people’s homes without judicial warrants and detaining U.S. citizens.
“That’s what people are so upset about, and this needs to be fixed,” said Shaheen, who is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan; additional reporting by Bo Erickson; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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