Congress

From TSA lines to disaster relief, here’s how a DHS shutdown would hurt

Published

9 months ago

February 11, 2026

There’s nothing like the ire of constituents to motivate lawmakers to end a government shutdown. But it could take weeks for the public to start noticing the funding lapse set to hit DHS on Saturday if Congress doesn’t act.

TSA airport screeners, for instance, wouldn’t miss full paychecks until March, and billions of dollars remain in the FEMA coffers used for immediate response to disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and floods.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem could find creative ways to lessen the pain of a shutdown. That could include bankrolling paychecks for DHS law enforcement personnel and active-duty members of the Coast Guard by tapping money from the tax and spending package Republicans enacted last summer, as the agency did during the shutdown last fall.

This could decrease pressure on lawmakers to fund DHS amid negotiations over a crackdown on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics. Congress doesn’t have forever, though, before the pain starts to kick in across the department.

Immigration and border security

The Trump administration’s immigration and border security operations are at the heart of the partisan dispute that could spark a shutdown. Compared to other parts of the agency, though, the federal government’s three immigration-focused agencies aren’t as affected by funding lapses.

About 40 percent of funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is untouched by a lapse. That’s because the agencies receive a combination of mandatory funds, revenue from fees and billions of dollars from the GOP megabill Trump signed into law in 2025.

Of the three, CBP relies most on the cash Congress provides each year in the regular government funding bills. But the agency received $65 billion from the party-line legislation Republicans cleared last summer, in addition to the $75 billion the law included for ICE.

TSA

When airport security screeners start missing pay, many stop showing up to work, causing TSA lines to grow at hubs throughout the country. In prior shutdowns, that started happening about a month in.

This time, screeners would begin missing full paychecks in mid-March, likely spurring longer waits during the peak of spring break travel.

While DHS paid air marshals during the historic government shutdown last fall, that didn’t cover checks for the TSA screeners who keep people and their baggage moving through U.S. airports.

One factor that could motivate TSA agents to show up to work anyway is the $10,000 bonuses DHS officials gave to screeners who demonstrated “exemplary service” after the funding lapse that ran through October and into November.

FEMA

FEMA has about $7 billion left in its disaster relief fund, a sum likely to buoy the agency for at least a month or two. While most of the agency’s disaster aid work continues during a government shutdown, though, FEMA would have to start restricting its reimbursements to states.

During past funding lapses, FEMA deemed roughly 85 percent of its 25,000 employees “essential,” meaning they had to continue coming to work without pay, and it continued processing disaster aid applications from individuals.

Coast Guard

The Coast Guard’s work alongside the military in missions abroad would continue during a funding lapse. But the service could have to halt some work including family support services and efforts to buy new cutters.

During the record-setting shutdown late last year, DHS dipped into a $10 billion pot of money from the GOP megabill to pay about 68,000 workers, including some law enforcement personnel and active duty members of the Coast Guard, to the tune of about $1 billion each pay period.

If DHS shuts down again, department officials could do the same for several months before exhausting the account, which was replenished after the government reopened in mid-November.

Coast Guard contractors and employees who are not active duty were not paid during the fall shutdown, however. And contractors are not guaranteed back pay, even though all federal employees, whether furloughed or not, are eligible for back pay after a shutdown under a law enacted in the wake of the funding lapse that ended in 2019.

Cybersecurity

The Trump administration has previously designated only about a third of federal workers as essential at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency during a government shutdown.

That limits the workforce that scans and protects U.S. networks from cyber incursions. It also hinders CISA’s ability to help state and local officials defend against cyber threats and assist other agencies with security patches.

Even before Congress let any federal funding lapse in recent months, the Trump administration had already considerably downsized the agency. Around a third of its employees were eitherlaid off or quitover the last year, then dozens were permanently shifted to other DHS agencies during the shutdown that ended in November.

Secret Service

Most of the Secret Service’s workforce is kept on during a shutdown, sometimes including employees in charge of recruitment, training and communications. But personnel who do jobs in offices like human resources and finance are typically furloughed.

After Trump was shot at a campaign rally in 2024, the Secret Service significantly elevated the level of security it provides to the more than 40 people the agency is tasked with protecting, among them former presidents. During a government shutdown, the agency is more selective about how it spends money to safeguard those people.

Like other DHS agencies, the Secret Service also got money from the GOP’s 2025 tax and spending package that can be used during a funding lapse. That included almost $1.2 billion to cover a wide range of expenses such as training facility costs, technology and bonuses.

Thomas Frank, Paroma Soni, Leo Shane and Andres Picon contributed to this report.

Congress

Katherine Clark launches majority leader bid

Published

1 hour ago

November 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts officially announced her bid for majority leader in a letter to colleagues Thursday.

Clark, currently the No. 2 to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, is widely considered a shoo-in among her colleagues. She is currently unopposed, and if she wins, she would be the first woman with the title and most progressive member of the top leadership trio that is also expected to include Jeffries as speaker and Rep. Pete Aguilar as whip.

In line with leadership’s campaign message, Clark emphasized “Affordability, Affordability, Affordability” in her pitch to the caucus. Specifically, she named “ending the reckless war in Iran, rescinding Trump’s tariffs, reversing Republicans’ catastrophic cuts to healthcare and food assistance, curing off their giveaways to the Epstein Class, and pursuing rigorous oversight of this corrupt administration.”

To wrangle House Democrats’ massive majority — which is tracking to reach over 255 seats — Clark vowed to members: “At every decision point, I intend to work closely with you to understand the needs of your district and maximize your ability to deliver for your constituents.”

“Democrats will succeed by working as a team.” she added.

Clark will get a vote during House Democratic leadership elections scheduled for Nov. 18 and 19.

Congress

Trump loyalists face off to lead a decimated House GOP

Published

3 hours ago

November 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republicans are responding to the resounding rebuke of their party by launching headlong into a leadership contest where neither candidate appears willing to break with the person congressional Republicans most blame for the sweeping midterm losses: President Donald Trump.

Both Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise are known to their colleagues as close Trump allies, and neither indicated they intend to put any daylight into their relationships with the president in their initial statements declaring their intention to run for minority leader.

Jordan, the longtime conservative brawler and sitting Judiciary chair, pledged to push back on Democratic excesses including “investigating every facet of the Administration and private entities across the country.”

Scalise, the current majority leader and a fixture of GOP leadership for more than a decade, also raised the prospect of pushing back against Democratic investigations and a possible Trump impeachment while telling colleagues that the president needed a “tested negotiator working alongside him to secure administration priorities.”

Those pledges to fight Democrats on Trump’s behalf came at the same time that other members were musing both publicly and privately about the president’s rapidly waning influence — and the imperative for lawmakers to start taking steps to craft a political future without him in it.

“Let’s start being a separate branch of government,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who is retiring at the end of the year, said in a text message about the election. “We’re not an appendage of the White House.”

Few House Republicans expect Scalise or Jordan to publicly break with Trump, which would be wildly out of character for either of them. Scalise traveled with the president during the final days of the midterm campaign season, and Jordan rose from a hard-right rabble-rouser to a cable-news fixture in part by embracing Trump.

Trump, for his part, said Wednesday he’s not planning to weigh in on the upcoming GOP leadership race that erupted immediately after Speaker Mike Johnson announced he would step aside as top House Republican in the next Congress.

“We’ll stay out of it,” Trump said. “All good people. I guess right now you have two candidates, right?”

Candidates in other House GOP leadership races similarly did not mention the need for the party to chart an independent course, but most stressed party unity and prioritizing members’ nuts-and-bolts concerns.

Members, meanwhile, spent Wednesday talking privately among themselves about the historic electoral wipeout — which could see Democrats win 260 seats, more than they’ve had since the early 1990s — and Trump’s role in bringing it about.

Trump responded to the loss by arguing Republicans simply do not vote if he is not on the ballot — cold comfort for lawmakers who will never appear on a ballot with Trump again.

A House Republican, one of several granted anonymity to speak candidly about the president and the upcoming leadership race, predicted many members would start creating distance from the president “quickly” upon their return to Washington as they come to terms with a post-Trump future.

“I’ve been totally wrong on that before,” the member added. But “I just don’t see how any amount of contorting can polish up this turd.”

Another GOP lawmaker lamented that Trump had not gotten more honest feedback from fellow Republicans sooner.

“They didn’t call him out on things they didn’t like, over fear of retribution,” the member said. “And that’s a real problem.”

It’s an open question whether Jordan or Scalise would be equipped to do that. Jordan, a founder of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, pitched himself in a letter to colleagues as an expert in combating the hard-nosed investigations that Democrats are pledging to launch into Trump and other targets.

“I am battle-tested on the oversight front and I know the Democrats’ playbook,” Jordan said in a letter to colleagues. “I know what it will take to lead our Conference in the minority, to stay unified, and to coordinate and calibrate our response to the Democrats’ tactics.”

Underscoring his support on the right, Jordan won an endorsement from the leader of the hard-line Club for Growth Wednesday. David McIntosh, a former House Republican, called Jordan “principled, politically savvy, [a] prolific fundraiser, and the best communicator” for the House GOP.

Scalise, whom many members see as the more moderate option, emphasized his past fundraising and legislative efforts and focused on the battle to regain the House majority — calling it his “number one goal as Republican leader.”

A third House Republican noted Scalise has to walk a fine line between being a known quantity and part of a leadership team that stayed tied to Trump’s hip.

“If people are looking for the steady hand, again, I think he’s a guy to watch,” the member said. “But we got our asses kicked. And are they going to blame Scalise for that or the president? … Johnson already did, but does his first mate have to walk the plank, too?”

In his letter, Scalise called on House Republicans to “stand united as one team, be smart and strategic to secure conservative policy wins where we can, closely coordinate our defense against aggressive oversight and together develop a clear vision and agenda to earn back the majority in 2028.”

But as the prospect of having to turn 40 or more seats sunk in on Wednesday, Republicans took stock of whether the majority would be back in reach in two years.

A fourth GOP lawmaker said the goal of 2028 flip was not “realistic” and said Republicans were better-served to adopt a battle posture as Democrats threaten investigations and impeachments. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the likely incoming Oversight chair, told targets Tuesday night to “lawyer up.”

“Is there somebody better built for that than Jim Jordan?” the Republican said.

Congress

Capitol agenda: House GOP’s old guard is in for a fight

Published

6 hours ago

November 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republican leadership races after the party’s catastrophic losses are shaping up to be a battle between the old versus new guard.

Party elections are set for Tuesday morning and will test how closely GOP members — angry over Republicans’ deep defeats and eager to chart a different course — tie their existing leadership team to the thrashing.

The ballot appears to be largely set for the House’s top three GOP positions after Speaker Mike Johnson said he would not run for top Republican again. After sending letters to colleagues yesterday, candidates will make their pitches to the rest of the conference before members vote in a secret tally. Friday is the deadline to declare candidacy.

Several members told Mia the race fallout could get ugly between incumbents and challengers. Here’s how the contests are shaking out:

— MINORITY LEADER: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has thrown his hat in the ring against Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan to lead Republicans over the next two years, and the battle is expected to be bitter.

It’s a repeat of a faceoff between the two men in 2023. And Scalise, while seen as the more “steady hand” as one Republican put it, is also the most tied to Johnson.

“We got our asses kicked,” the member said. “And are they going to blame Scalise for that or the president? And are Republicans going to be happy if there are no scalps on the wall? Johnson already did, but does his first mate have to walk the plank too?”

— WHIP: House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, as expected, will try to keep his role, and Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger challenged him yesterday. It’s not a surprising move: many knew Pfluger was angling for a leadership perch.

Several House Republicans say Emmer has broad conference support. But Pfluger could try to argue that GOP leadership should have pushed for more in another party-line bill this year.

— CONFERENCE CHAIR: GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain got a surprise challenge Wednesday night from Rep. Erin Houchin for the No. 3 job, focused on messaging.

McClain released a list of 35 members supporting her and her experience yesterday. Houchin’s name, meanwhile, was floated by several Republicans as a potential rising star.

The wild card in the elections? President Donald Trump, whose endorsement could easily sway a race. As of Wednesday, however, Trump said he wouldn’t choose sides in the minority leader fight.

What else we’re watching:

— HOUSE DEM FACTIONS LOOK TO DISARM: After securing a huge majority, House Democrats’ warring factions say they are preparing to collaborate. This time last week, the progressive and moderate wings of the House Democratic Caucus were gearing up to battle for influence in what they thought might be a slim governing majority. But with some estimating the party will win as mean as 260 seats, the prospect of having a 30-vote-minimum margin to pass legislation means no one group will come to the table with an obvious edge that would handcuff the likely incoming speaker, Hakeem Jeffries.

— GOP TRIES TO SALVAGE LAME DUCK — Republicans had a long list of priorities to wrap up in the lame-duck session. But Democrats may not be in the mood to compromise after their midterm election victories. Republicans will have to prioritize what they want to accomplish in their waning days of congressional control once Congress returns next week. Must-pass legislation both parties want to finish includes funding the government to avoid a pre-holiday shutdown and passing the annual defense authorization bill. Also in flux: whether Democrats will vote to enact a permitting deal reached before the election.

Riley Rogerson and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.