February 9, 2026
We are just four days away from Homeland Security shutting down…. Unless of course House and Senate Democrats and Republicans come to an agreement on big changes to ICE. Here’s the twist – ICE probably won’t be impacted if Homeland Security shuts down after Friday – but that’s not the point – the point is – you will probably be impacted.
So let me explain how this is going to work. As I have been reporting for weeks – the u-s government should have been fully funded in September of 2025 – five months ago. Because congress can’t get its act together they kept kicking the can down the road –until just six days ago when congress finally funded the entire government – except homeland security. Democrats refused to give their votes to fund DHS because they are pissed at what we’re seeing on the streets of America with ICE and Customs and Border Protection. They originally wanted 3 policy changes – now they want 10.
Number one – they want changes to targeted enforcement. Democrats want DHS to return to getting a judicial warrant to enter someone’s home and they want DHS to require verification that a person is not a US citizen before holding them in detention. Number two — they want – no more masks. Number three — they want DHS officers to display their names and which agency they work for. Number four – they want to prohibit DHS funds from being used to conduct enforcement near sensitive locations like schools, churches, hospitals, polling places, and child care facilities. Number five – they want to prohibit DHS from conducting stops or questioning people based on someone’s job, or their accent, or language spoken, or their race or the fact that they’re just hanging out in certain locations – like Home Depot. Number six – they want DHS officers to adhere to the same use of force policies as your average local cop. Number seven – they want state and local law enforcement to be able to participate in investigations when something happens – like what happened to Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota. Number eight – they want immigration detention centers to adhere to the same basic standards of all other detention centers. Number nine – they want body cameras to be mandatory when DHS officers are conducting these enforcement operations. And number ten – they want DHS officers to wear the same uniforms and carry the same equipment. Right now – you’ve probably seen the videos of ICE and CBP officers all wearing something different…so its hard to tell who they work for.
Now – with every negotiation – obviously no one gets everything they want. The democrats are probably going to have to compromise on some of this stuff – but republicans are going to have to compromise too. Because they need Democrats’ votes to fund homeland security. It’s just unclear what republicans are willing to offer…that will be enough for democrats to say ok and fund homeland security for the rest of the fiscal year.
Now–if no deal can be made by this Friday – Homeland Security will be shut down because there will be no funding plan for the department. I have been reporting for weeks — even if Homeland Security shutdown – that’s not really going to stop ICE and CBP from conducting these immigration enforcement activities – and that’s because Republicans gave ICE $75 billion dollars in the big beautiful bill. So ICE – has the money to keep going. But here’s where you come into the mix. Just because ice was funded doesn’t mean other important Homeland Security departments were also funded. For example – the Coast Guard is part of DHS and so is FEMA and so is TSA. So if there is no deal and funding lapses – depending on how long the shutdown lasts – the Coast Guard will have to show up to work and not get paid, FEMA may have to show up and not get paid and your FEMA claims may get delayed and TSA agents will have to show up with no pay. And we all remember the chaos at airports during the last shutdown in this exact situation. Democrats feel so strongly about reining in ICE that the are willing to sacrifice all these functions of DHS. But republicans don’t want any of that to happen and neither does the president – so it’s possible that these pressure points on you may cause republicans to make a deal on ice. Or not. We’ll have to see.
One last thing I want to clear up because there seems to be a lot of confusion about the big beautiful funding for DHS and ICE. Let me be clear — no – ICE is not funded through 2028 or 2029. That’s not at all accurate. As I have been reporting since last summer in the big beautiful bill Republicans gave Homeland Security $191 billion of additional funding over and above their annual budget of $64 billion. ICE specifically got $75 billion dollars in the big beautiful bill over and above their annual budget of $10 billion. But here’s what lots of keyboard warriors just don’t understand. One — that money does not show up to DHS or ICE in one lump sum. That money will be doled out over the next few years. And two– that big beautiful bill funding is not guaranteed. That not how it works. Annual appropriations which is how these agencies are funded — have to be voted on by both the House and the Senate every year. The big beautiful bill money was extra and there’s a very real possibility that Congress will repeal some or all of that big beautiful bill money for DHS and ICE. It happens all the time. Just ask the IRS. Remember when Democrats gave the IRS $80 billion dollars? Well what you might not know is when Republicans took control they clawed a bunch of that money back. The IRS only has a small portion of that money left to use over the next 8 years. And it’s very likely that ICE and DHS will have the same fate — in fact – those wheels are already in motion. There was an amendment from Senator Bernie Sanders to repeal that $75 billion dollars. It failed. But that doesn’t’ mean it’ll fail in the future. The bottom line is – the only money these departments can count on is their annual appropriations….which is what’s being discussed now. The additional money – like in the big beautiful bill – can come and go.
