Last weekend, a wave of disarray swept through airports nationwide as staffing shortages left travelers stranded in security lines for hours. As the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Coast Guard employees grapple with weeks of unpaid work, many have turned to food banks for relief. Despite the ongoing partial government shutdown intended to restrain the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) aggressive immigration arrests and deportations, federal agents have pressed forward with their anti-immigrant operations, leaving little room for intervention.

The impasse over immigration enforcement has left DHS unfunded for more than a month. Congressional Democrats insist that the funding deadlock will persist until the White House agrees to implement changes within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Although major sections of DHS are impacted, ICE and CBP remain financially fortified, thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which narrowly passed last fall despite unified Democratic resistance. The act allocated a staggering $170 billion to these agencies for immigration enforcement through 2029, with ICE receiving $45 billion for new detention centers and $30 billion for personnel training. This unusual multi-year funding has shielded these agencies from immediate political pressures.

Empowered by the OBBBA’s provisions, ICE has persisted in its immigration enforcement activities, including the detention of a Nashville-based journalist with a pending asylum claim. Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection continues to evaluate potential sites for its proposed “smart wall” along the US-Mexico border, even briefly contemplating a controversial route through Big Bend National Park in Texas, a plan they have since abandoned due to local opposition. Despite the shutdown, most DHS employees, including TSA officers and CBP agents, remain unpaid but are set to receive backpay once funding resumes.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats are pushing for a series of reforms to restore DHS funding for the current fiscal year. Their demands include “targeted enforcement” in place of indiscriminate patrols, the elimination of racial profiling, the establishment of a “reasonable use of force policy,” and enhanced training for officers. Lawmakers have criticized ICE and CBP’s plainclothes officers as resembling a “paramilitary police” and are urging DHS to ban masks and standardize uniforms for agents on duty. They also advocate for the use of body cameras and require officers to display IDs with their agency, last name, and unique officer number.

“These are common-sense reforms, ones that Americans know and expect from law enforcement,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stated at a January press conference, though these proposals have yet to gain traction.

Democrats have notched one high-profile victory in the fight: Trump fired DHS secretary Kristi Noem last Thursday ahead of a House vote to fund DHS. But most Democrats aren’t content with Noem’s ouster. “The problems at this agency transcend any one person,” Schumer said at a press conference after last Thursday’s vote. “The rot is deep. The president has to end the violence and rein in ICE.” The House passed the appropriations bill after her firing, but Senate Democrats didn’t budge.

“It’s not like Kristi Noem was involved in negotiating anything,” added House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). It has long been understood that Trump adviser Stephen Miller runs the show at DHS regardless of who the secretary is. “We were dealing with the White House before, and we’re going to continue to deal with the White House at this point,” Jeffries said.

There’s little reason for the administration to give in to Democrats’ demands. The White House and congressional Republicans have blamed the shutdown on “Radical Left Democrats,” claiming their refusal to fund DHS is putting Americans at risk. Though essential federal employees continue to work through the shutdown — in some cases without pay — Republicans have warned that the funding lapse may prevent DHS from responding to “threats against our homeland” in light of the Trump administration’s recent invasion of Iran. Even if individual officers have to go without pay, the unprecedented funding ICE and CBP received from the OBBBA mean the agencies’ operations can continue.

Last year’s government shutdown provides insight into ICE and CBP’s operations. ICE deported an estimated 56,000 people during the 43-day funding lapse last fall and held approximately 65,000 people in detention during the same timeframe. But because its operations were funded from OBBBA appropriations, ICE claimed in court filings, the agency didn’t have to grant entry to Democratic lawmakers who sought to monitor conditions in federal detention centers as part of their oversight duties.

The effects of the shutdown aren’t equally distributed among DHS’s various component agencies. Ironically, given that Congress created DHS in response to the September 11th airplane attacks, the agency that has experienced the most disruptions so far is the TSA. Agents received roughly 30 percent of their pay last week but will not be paid again until DHS is funded, according to the Times. Ports of entry, including airports, are still mostly operational. Though DHS initially claimed TSA Precheck would be suspended amid the shutdown, the program is currently running at most airports. Global Entry, which is handled by CBP, is largely suspended.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that handles naturalizations, green cards, and other benefit applications, remains operational. Unlike other DHS agencies, USCIS is almost entirely fee-funded, meaning it is largely unaffected by the federal funding debate. Immigration courts also remain open, since the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the federal agency that oversees the immigration court system, is under the purview of the Department of Justice.

Some DHS employees, however, are out of work amid the shutdown. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said on Sunday that Democrats want to fund most DHS component agencies — including the TSA, Coast Guard, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — separately.

Roughly 15 percent of FEMA workers are currently furloughed, while the remaining 85 percent are expected to work without pay. The New York Times reports that FEMA’s disaster relief fund is equipped to handle “current and anticipated” emergency response activities. Its response to a major disaster, however, “would be seriously strained,” Gregg Phillips, the associate administrator for the agency’s Office of Response and Recovery, said in federal testimony last week.

Nearly two-thirds of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency employees are furloughed. Many of the 888 employees the agency has deemed “essential to protecting life and property” have had to work without pay.

“Let’s just pass those funding bills,” Kaine said. Let’s confine the ICE and CBP reform discussion just to those two agencies and fund the others. Thus far, Republicans have blocked those efforts.”