Another federal law enforcement shooting put talk of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding back in the news this weekend, just in time for Congress to come back from a week-long recess. This time, however, it was the Secret Service neutralizing a pretty clear threat – a young man armed with a shotgun held in shooting position at President Donald Trump's private Florida residence. The Secret Service reported that neither the commander-in-chief nor any other protectee was on the property at the time. Lawmakers reconvene this afternoon, the incident is all but certain to take center stage in the continued “discussion,” if we can call it that, on the Department of Homeland Security. So far, neither faction has been willing to budge, and so the shutdown shenanigans continue – without actual benefit to either side.
Democrats remain resolute in not approving another penny for DHS without Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reform. With both agencies fully funded for several years by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, however, Republicans really don’t have any reason to cave. Meanwhile, the other branches of the department – like the aforementioned Secret Service and the Coast Guard – will have to continue their critical jobs, potentially without pay.
And as Congress continues to stall on funding, the various other bits are beginning to fail. Most ironically and dramatically, this includes the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the internal watchdog group that keeps ICE and CBP in line. And the results of this lapse in funding for oversight have had precisely the kind of results one might expect: Since Democrats balked at the latest deal, at least seven internal DHS investigations into ICE conduct have been suspended.
Shutdown Shenanigans – There’s More to DHS Than Just ICE
On Sunday morning, about 1:30 a.m., an armed man drove into the secure perimeter of Mar-a-Lago. The 21-year-old from North Carolina showed up armed with a shotgun and a gas can, according to an FBI statement.
The young man was shot and killed by two Secret Service agents and a county deputy. “He was ordered to drop those two pieces of equipment that he had with him, at which point he put down the gas can, raised the shotgun to a shooting position,” Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told the press. The three officers then fired to “neutralize the threat.” While no motive has yet been revealed, it certainly doesn’t sound as if his intentions were friendly. These Secret Service agents will continue to work with or without funding – meaning they’ll continue to do the job regardless of whether they’re getting paid.
Also over the weekend, DHS announced it would pause two of its programs meant to speed up the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) airport screening process. Initially, the department planned to cease the TSA PreCheck and Global Entry programs starting at 6 a.m. ET on Sunday, but it then announced the program would continue to operate, for now.
Global Entry has been paused, however, meaning travelers returning to the US from abroad likely won’t be able to use the biometric kiosks, leading to delays through customs.
What additional DHS programs will be abandoned due to lack of funding remains to be seen and depends heavily on just how long this partial shutdown lasts. Perhaps the most ironic consequence is that the department lacks funding to investigate ICE and CBP agent behavior.
The House reconvenes today (Monday) at noon Eastern Time, while the Senate meets at 3 p.m. There remains no hint of even the beginning of a deal, however, so things are only going to get more inconvenient.
A Reality Check for the Left
A DHS funding bill passed the House but failed in the Senate before the February 14 shutdown began, and it was a compromise legislation. After the shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Democrats in Congress demanded a list of “reforms,” which ranged from probably quite reasonable to somewhat ridiculous. This bill accepted the more moderate – “commonsense,” if we dare borrow one of the left’s favorite legislative terms – demands and ignored the rest. It would have necessitated increased training requirements for ICE and ensured that all federal law enforcement agents wore body cameras, for instance.
But it wasn’t enough for leftist lawmakers in the Senate, so they balked and forced the government into a partial shutdown. In reality, only DHS – and only part of the department, for that matter – is actually shutting down or working without pay. Again, ICE and CBP are well funded already through other legislation, but the folks who keep them accountable are not. So, not only do the “big bad federal officers” get to continue the behavior that has progressives so outraged, but any actual inappropriate use of force is likely to go uninvestigated.
Though it has been frequently brought up since before the shutdown began, this point can’t be stressed enough: Democrats didn’t defund ICE and CBP agents – but they may have let them off their leash.
