39 Days Without Pay: How Congress's DHS Funding Standoff Left 60,000 Federal Workers in Limbo

As of March 25, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security has been operating without a confirmed budget for 39 days. Roughly 60,000 TSA officers and other DHS personnel have been reporting to work without receiving paychecks. More than 400 of them have resigned. Checkpoint lines at major airports have stretched for hours. Three security checkpoints at Philadelphia International Airport have closed entirely. ICE agents — not airport security screeners — have been deployed to 13 airports to manage crowd control.

This is not a full government shutdown. Congress funded the rest of the federal government months ago. DHS is the lone holdout — a targeted funding lapse that stems from a bitter dispute between Republicans and Democrats over immigration enforcement. Here is the vote-by-vote breakdown of how it happened, and where things stand right now.

How DHS Funding Lapsed

DHS funding expired on February 14, 2026. The immediate trigger was Democratic opposition following a high-profile incident in Minneapolis in which two American citizens — identified publicly as Renee Good and Alex Pretti — were fatally shot by federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation.

Democrats drew a line: they would not vote to fund ICE enforcement operations until Congress enacted reforms to agency oversight and use-of-force protocols. Republicans countered that defunding DHS created a national security vacuum — and that ICE had already received $75 billion in separate funding through last year's reconciliation package. The positions hardened, and DHS funding lapsed.

Critically, ICE's immigration enforcement operations were not cut off. They continued drawing from that prior reconciliation funding. The agencies that did lose funding were TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, Secret Service, and other DHS components — the parts of DHS that protect airports, respond to disasters, and guard the coasts.

The Vote Scorecard: Four Failures

Congress has taken four key votes since the funding lapse began. All four have failed to end the standoff. Here is the complete record:

Vote 1: The Democratic TSA-Only Bill — 41 to 49

Democrats proposed a targeted fix: pass a standalone bill funding TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard while leaving ICE enforcement funding out of the equation until reform negotiations could continue. The bill failed 41-49 — well short of the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster and proceed to a final vote.

Every Republican voted against it. The GOP's position: any partial DHS funding solution that excluded ICE was unacceptable. Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-SD) argued that funding DHS piecemeal would legitimize the Democratic demand to single out immigration enforcement — a precedent Republicans refused to set.

For verification of roll call data, see the 119th Congress bill search on Congress.gov and the GovTrack Senate votes database.

Vote 2: The Republican Full DHS Bill — Blocked

Republicans responded with a bill to fund all of DHS — including ICE enforcement — with no reform conditions attached. Democrats blocked it. Their position: funding ICE without any accountability reforms was the entire problem. The vote failed to reach 60, keeping both sides at an impasse.

The result was a symmetrical deadlock. Neither party could peel off enough cross-aisle votes to hit the 60-vote supermajority required for cloture. TSA officers kept working. Paychecks kept not arriving.

Vote 3: The SAVE America Act Complication — 51 to 48

While the DHS funding fight continued, Senate Republicans brought an entirely separate piece of legislation to the floor: the SAVE America Act, Trump's top legislative priority for election integrity. A motion to proceed — a procedural vote simply to begin floor debate on the bill — passed 51-48.

One Republican crossed over: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voted NO alongside all Democrats. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) did not vote. (CVT tracked Tillis's absence separately — see his full scorecard.)

The 51-48 procedural win was misleading. The bill itself still requires 60 votes to end debate and advance to a final passage vote — a threshold Republicans cannot hit without Democratic support. The SAVE America Act is on the floor, it is being debated, and it is stuck. Its key provisions would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, photo ID for mail-in ballots, and empower DHS to flag suspected noncitizens on voter rolls.

CVT has a full breakdown of the bill's provisions in our earlier coverage: SAVE America Act Bill Breakdown. Separately, the House passed its own version — see our House vote breakdown for that roll call.

The Mullin Factor: 8-7 Committee Vote, Then 54-45 Confirmation

Separate from the floor drama, the Senate Homeland Security Committee voted 8-7 to advance Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) as DHS Secretary — the agency's top job, left vacant throughout the funding lapse.

The committee split was almost perfectly partisan — with two notable exceptions. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voted NO, citing what he described as Mullin's "anger issues" and temperament concerns. Paul was the only Republican to break ranks. On the other side, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voted YES — crossing the aisle on the grounds that DHS needed confirmed leadership during an active funding crisis.

The full Senate subsequently confirmed Mullin 54-45. He was sworn in as DHS Secretary on March 25 — 39 days into the shutdown he now leads. For a complete breakdown of the Senate floor confirmation vote, see CVT's Mullin confirmation scorecard.

The Deal on the Table: A Two-Track Framework

As of March 25, Senate Republicans are floating a potential resolution built around a two-track approach:

Track 1: A bipartisan bill funding all of DHS except ICE immigration enforcement. This track would need 60 votes — meaning Republican leaders would need to bring several Democrats on board. Negotiations are ongoing.

Track 2: A separate reconciliation measure — which requires only a simple majority — that would fund ICE enforcement and potentially include some provisions from the SAVE America Act. Budget reconciliation cannot be filibustered.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), who chairs the appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over DHS, is leading the GOP negotiating effort. Senate Majority Leader Thune has publicly signaled optimism: "I feel good about it."

Democrats have signaled openness but are demanding specific legislative text before committing. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, criticized the framework for not including ICE reform provisions — the core Democratic demand that triggered the standoff in the first place. House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said he had not yet seen the text.

The proposal faces internal Republican resistance as well. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), a SAVE America Act sponsor, warned that certain provisions of the bill cannot legally pass through budget reconciliation — describing the path as "essentially impossible." Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) also expressed reservations about attaching SAVE Act provisions to a DHS funding deal. And the House Freedom Caucus has signaled skepticism.

Trump has not publicly endorsed or rejected the Britt framework. He had previously rejected a similar proposal from Sens. Kennedy and Cruz.

What It Looks Like on the Ground

The policy debate is abstract. The airport impact is not. As of this week:

• Nationwide TSA officer callout rates are running 10–12% per day — nearly double normal levels.
• Single-day callout rates at individual airports have hit 51.5% at Houston Hobby, 42.3% at New Orleans Armstrong, 41.5% at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, and 37.4% at JFK.
• Philadelphia International Airport has closed three security checkpoints.
• ICE has been deployed to 13 airports to assist with crowd management — not screening.
• Delta Air Lines suspended its special Congressional services program at airports, including expedited screening and escort services for lawmakers, citing the shutdown's operational impact.
• More than 400 TSA officers have resigned since the funding lapse began — nearly half had three or more years of experience, and a third had five or more years.

According to reporting from NBC News, TSA officers who have stayed on the job have done so under financial hardship. Some have reported taking out loans or drawing on savings to cover basic expenses while waiting to be paid.

What Happens Next

The immediate pressure point is March 27 — the start of the scheduled Easter recess. Senate Majority Leader Thune has threatened to cancel the two-week break if no deal is reached. Whether that threat holds will depend on whether Britt's two-track framework can survive contact with both Democratic demands and internal GOP skepticism.

If a bipartisan agreement on the non-ICE DHS track can be struck, it would go to the House — where the Freedom Caucus and other hardliners have already expressed doubts. A reconciliation bill for ICE funding would follow a separate, slower track and would still need to survive Senate parliamentarian review.

There is no guaranteed path forward before the recess. The 39-day standoff has outlasted multiple rounds of negotiations, two failed floor votes, and one freshly confirmed DHS Secretary who inherited an agency still operating without a budget on his first day in office.