The fight over immigration policy just produced a new kind of record in Washington, and not the bragging kind. The Department of Homeland Security's funding lapse hit day 44 on Sunday, making it the longest partial government shutdown the US has seen, NBC News reports. It broke the previous record set during the federal government's 43-day shutdown last year. This time around, other federal agencies are funded, but DHS is not—and the stalemate shows little sign of ending soon; Congress is largely out of town until mid-April.
The Senate on Friday approved a bipartisan measure to fund most of DHS, but not Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection. House GOP leaders dismissed that plan—Speaker Mike Johnson labeled it "a joke"—and instead passed a short-term funding bill that is going nowhere in the Senate. Democrats say they won't back full DHS funding without tighter rules on immigration enforcement. The partial shutdown, which began Feb. 14, is rippling through airports, where TSA officers have worked without pay, prompting long lines, resignations, and mass sick-outs.
President Trump ordered DHS on Friday to resume paying TSA employees; Trump's "border czar" Tom Homan says checks are expected Monday or Tuesday, ABC News reports. Officers were still calling out sick after Trump's order, with 10.27% of scheduled workers calling out Saturday. ICE agents, funded under an earlier spending package, have been getting paid and are now assisting at airports. Homan said Sunday that the agents will stay at airports "as long as they need us," the AP reports.
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