Roughly 90% of the greater than 260,000 workers on the Division of Homeland Safety will proceed working by way of the looming DHS shutdown, and lots of of them will accomplish that with out pay.
However the affect of the shutdown, which now seems sure to occur, varies broadly relying on the DHS element and place in query. That’s very true after Congress gave some DHS elements, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Safety, tens of billions of {dollars} in extra funding as a part of final yr’s tax and reconciliation regulation.
And through final yr’s 43-day shutdown, the Trump administration shifted funding round to proceed paying army service members and regulation enforcement officers.
On the eve of a DHS-specific shutdown for what’s going to doubtless final no less than one week, right here’s what we learn about how the shutdown may affect totally different DHS elements:
ICE, CBP
Republicans in Congress argue ICE and CBP operations would proceed largely unabated through the shutdown because of funding from the 2025 One Huge Lovely Invoice Act. Democrats argue sturdy immigration enforcement reforms are wanted earlier than passing additional funding for ICE or CBP.
Sometimes, most ICE and CBP workers would work unpaid throughout a authorities shutdown. The funding within the One Huge Lovely Invoice Act was not particularly marked for salaries or operations.
However throughout final fall’s shutdown, the Trump administration used funding from the invoice anyway to maintain paying 70,000 federal regulation enforcement officers, together with ICE and CBP brokers.
In the meantime, many civilian workers at ICE and CBP continued working unpaid by way of the 43 days.
“President Trump and I will always stand by law enforcement, and we are keeping our promise to always support them by making sure they are paid during the Democrats’ shutdown,” Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem stated final fall.
DHS didn’t reply to questions on whether or not it will use comparable price range gymnastics to proceed paying ICE and CBP officers throughout one other shutdown.
TSA
About 95% of the 61,000 workers on the Transportation Safety Administration are deemed “essential” throughout a authorities shutdown. Which means TSA airport screeners proceed staffing safety checkpoints with out getting paid.
As final fall’s 43-day shutdown dragged on, extra TSA officers started calling out sick or in any other case not exhibiting as much as work. The stress created by callouts on the TSA and the Federal Aviation Administration in the end helped finish the price range deadlock.
However performing TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeil stated many workers are nonetheless recovering from final yr’s shutdown.
“We heard reports of officers sleeping in their cars at airports to save money on gas, selling their blood and plasma and taking on second jobs to make ends meet,” McNeil stated at a Home listening to this week. “Some are just recovering from the financial impact of the 43-day shutdown. Many are still reeling from it. We cannot put them through another such experience.”
McNeill stated TSA additionally skilled a 25% improve in attrition in October and November of final yr in comparison with the identical interval in 2024.
“Which is quite concerning if we’re looking at another potential shutdown, especially as we’re entering spring break travel season and to prepare ourselves for the events coming at us this summer,” she added.
Requested on the Home listening to whether or not the administration may proceed paying TSA airport screeners utilizing reconciliation funding, McNeil stated, “I do not believe so.”
“I think that the best way to ensure that our frontline workers get paid is through the passage of a DHS budget,” she added.
In the meantime, TSA’s federal air marshals have been among the many group of regulation enforcement officers that acquired particular pay, like ICE and CBP officers, throughout final fall’s shutdown.
FEMA
FEMA has roughly 22,000 workers onboard after the company misplaced greater than 2,000 workers to the Trump administration’s workforce transition program in 2025. DHS’s shutdown contingency plan – which hasn’t been up to date to replicate the newest workers cuts – exhibits that about 84% of FEMA workers are thought-about excepted or exempt throughout a shutdown, whereas the remaining are furloughed.
However many FEMA workers may proceed getting paid underneath a shorter-term shutdown. That’s as a result of frontline FEMA workers often called Cadre of On-Name Response/Restoration Staff, or CORE workers, are Stafford Act workers and paid through the Catastrophe Reduction Fund. FEMA reservists are additionally paid by way of the fund when they’re working momentary deployments.
FEMA had 8,800 CORE workers and seven,800 reservists as of fiscal 2022.
The DRF nonetheless has funding left over from prior Congressional appropriations, based on Greg Phillips, FEMA’s affiliate administrator for the Workplace of Response and Restoration.
“FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund has sufficient balances to continue emergency response activities for the foreseeable future, and lifesaving and life sustaining activities are an excepted activity under DHS’s lapse plan,” Phillips informed Home lawmakers this week. “That said, if a catastrophic disaster occurred, the Disaster Relief Fund would be seriously strained.”
The upshot is {that a} long run shutdown mixed with a catastrophic catastrophe may drain the DRF and make it more durable for FEMA to reply to contingencies and proceed paying Stafford Act workers.
And FEMA workers that aren’t furloughed and are funded by way of annual appropriations must work with out pay through the length of any shutdown.
In the meantime, the Trump administration has been shedding a whole bunch of FEMA CORE workers in current weeks, with little public justification. Unions and nonprofits not too long ago sued the Trump administration to cease the CORE cuts.
Secret Service
On the Secret Service, 94% of roughly 8,200 workers will proceed working by way of a shutdown.
They usually work with out being paid. However like different DHS regulation enforcement positions, Secret Service brokers have been paid through the Trump administration’s price range maneuvers throughout final fall’s shutdown.
In the meantime, a lot of the company’s civilian workforce went with out pay.
Whereas a minimal quantity of workers will likely be furloughed, Deputy Director Matthew Quinn informed Home lawmakers that the shutdown impacts morale and makes the company’s job more durable.
Quinn additionally stated it delays the Secret Service’s reform efforts, which features a main recruitment push.
“The impacts may not be seen tomorrow, but I assure you, we will feel the ripple effects for some time,” he stated. “Delayed contracts, diminished hiring, and halted new programs will be the result.”
Coast Guard
A lot of the Coast Guard’s 56,000 energetic responsibility, reserve and civilian personnel will proceed working by way of the shutdown.
Vice Adm. Thomas Allan stated a lapse that lasts various days will halt pay for these personnel.
“Shutdowns cripple morale,” Allan, the Coast Guard’s performing vice commandant, stated throughout this week’s Home Appropriations Committee listening to. “The Gunner’s Mate manning a weapon in the Strait of Hormuz should not have to worry if their family will be able to pay rent while being shadowed by Iranian vessels.”
However because it did with regulation enforcement and the army, the Trump administration did transfer funding round to proceed paying Coast Guard service members throughout final fall’s shutdown. DHS used funding from the One Huge Lovely Invoice Act to pay Coasties through the shutdown.
CISA
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company plans to designate 888 of its 2,341 workers as excepted throughout a shutdown. All of these workers would go with out pay throughout a shutdown.
“A shutdown forces many of our frontline security experts and threat hunters to work without pay— even as nation-states and criminal organizations intensify efforts to exploit critical systems that Americans rely on—placing an unprecedented strain on our national defenses,” Appearing CISA Director Madhu Gottumukkala informed lawmakers this week.
The cyber company’s core tasks embrace defending federal company networks and dealing with important infrastructure to strengthen their safety.
Gottumukkala stated {that a} shutdown would delay the deployment of recent cyber providers to federal networks and the sharing of steering with important infrastructure companions. It might additionally doubtless delay CISA’s work to finalize a landmark cyber incident reporting rule.
The shutdown can be one other pressure on CISA after it misplaced roughly 1,000 workers members – about one-third of its workforce – underneath the Trump administration’s workforce discount packages.
USCIS
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers is primarily funded by person charges, somewhat than congressional appropriations, that means most workers proceed working and getting paid by way of any shutdown.
However a shutdown does curtail a set of USCIS packages that depend on congressional appropriations, such because the company’s e-Confirm system.
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