The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – which includes agencies that oversee immigration enforcement and disaster response – is expected to run out of funds after legislators failed to avert a partial government shutdown.
The Senate adjourned on Friday without reaching a deal to pass budget legislation for DHS. The House of Representatives, meanwhile, had started its weeklong recess on Thursday evening.
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That leaves a DHS shutdown all but inevitable when the funding expires at midnight in Washington, DC, on Saturday (05:00 GMT).
The impasse was spurred, in part, by the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which resulted in the killing of two US citizens in January.
Reports had emerged of masked immigration agents threatening bystanders and using violence disproportionately.
On February 4, Democratic leaders in Congress issued a list of demands to reform Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency that falls under the DHS.
The demands included banning ICE agents from wearing masks to conceal their identities, prohibiting racial profiling and ending immigration raids on “sensitive locations” like schools and churches.
Without such “common sense reforms”, the Democrats threatened to withhold their votes from any funding legislation for DHS.
But President Donald Trump’s Republican Party has rejected the Democrats’ demands, calling them unreasonable.
Republicans control both the Senate and the House. But a legislative rule in the Senate, known as the filibuster, requires lawmakers to reach a 60-vote threshold to pass major legislation.
On Thursday, the 100-seat Senate only saw 52 votes in favour of the funding legislation, with 47 opposed. Nearly all the chamber’s Democrats, save Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, stood united to block the bill.
“The Republican bill on the floor allows ICE to smash in doors without warrants, to wear masks and not be identified, to use children as bait for their parents,” top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said in a video message before the vote.
“We are keeping our word: No funding for ICE until it is reined in, until the violence ends.”
By Friday, many legislators in both chambers had already left Washington. Some, like Senator Mark Kelly, had travelled to Europe to take part in the Munich Security Conference. Others had returned to their congressional districts.
If the shutdown is prolonged, it could force tens of thousands of federal employees to work without pay. Some agencies may also have to reduce their workforce until funding resumes.
Major travel and hospitality groups in the US, including Airlines for America, issued a joint statement on Friday, warning that the shutdown could lead to travel delays.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which oversees airport security, is part of DHS.
“Travelers and the US economy cannot afford to have essential TSA personnel working without pay, which increases the risk of unscheduled absences and call outs, and ultimately can lead to higher wait times and missed or delayed flights,” the groups said.
But DHS’s immigration operations will be largely unaffected by the shutdown.
ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have been allocated billions of dollars through Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Congress passed last year.
US lawmakers often use government funding as a bargaining chip to secure concessions from their political rivals.
Last year saw the longest government shutdown in US history, lasting 43 days, as Democrats tried and failed to stop Republicans from ending healthcare subsidies.
Earlier this month, lawmakers agreed to a budget to fund the government through the end of September, but it only allocated money to DHS for two weeks.
The DHS shutdown comes a day after the Trump administration announced that it is ending its immigration operation in Minnesota.
The deadlock over DHS funding highlights the Democrats’ growing anger at ICE’s aggressive tactics and Trump’s mass deportation campaign, an issue likely to be key during November’s midterm elections.
A recent poll from the news agencies PBS News and NPR, and the research firm Marist, showed that 65 percent of respondents say that ICE has gone too far in its crackdown.
