A security guard stands in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters during a protest on February 3, 2026 in Washington, DC (Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The second partial government shutdown of 2026 was set to begin at 12:01 a.m. Saturday after lawmakers left the nation’s capital without reaching an agreement on changes to immigration enforcement tactics at the Department of Homeland Security.
The closure of the department is also likely to last for some time. With Congress absent next week for the President’s Day recess, lawmakers are not expected to vote on Capitol Hill until February 23.
A procedural vote The effort to approve funding for the fiscal year 2026 Homeland Security Act failed Thursday without support from Senate Democrats because it did not include restrictions on immigration enforcement, such as an end to the wearing of face coverings by agents.
Even with the president’s border czar, Tom Homan Announcement on Thursday Democrats argued that withdrawing thousands of federal immigration agents from Minneapolis was not enough.
“Without legislation, what Tom Homan says today could be undone tomorrow at the whim of (President) Donald Trump,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor Thursday.
Asked by the press pool Friday whether he could reach an agreement on the shutdown, Trump said: “We’ll see what happens. We always have to protect our law enforcement.”
After the Senate vote failed 52-47, congressmen left Washington for the recess. Some traveled to a vast security conference in Munich.
ICE still has cash on hand
While the agency Trump tasked with carrying out his mass immigrant deportation campaign is shutting down, enforcement will continue as Congress has set aside a separate stream of money, about $75 billion, for U.S. immigration and law enforcement agencies.
Immigration enforcement continued during the government shutdown last fall, which lasted a record 43 days.
Other agencies within DHS that will be closed but continue to operate because they employ vital workers include the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, among others.
Generallyall employees focused on national security issues or the protection of life and property would continue to work during a shutdown, while federal employees who do not would be furloughed.
None of the categories of employees will receive their paychecks during the funding expiration, although federal law requires that they receive back pay once Congress approves a spending bill.
Masks, body cameras
Democrats have pushed for policy changes after federal immigration agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. The deportation campaign there is set to end after the city faced more than two months of aggressive immigration enforcement.
Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration agent on Jan. 7, leading to a bipartisan agreement to introduce some guardrails, such as $20 million in funding for immigration officers to be allowed to wear body cameras.
But a second killing by federal immigration agents, that of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, prompted the Senate to decouple the homeland security measure from a package of spending bills as Democrats advanced proposals to rein in enforcement tactics and led to a four-day partial shutdown. A two-week funding period has been set for the negotiations, which expires at midnight on Friday.
Those policy proposals include requiring immigration officers not to wear masks and identify themselves, which has drawn mighty opposition from Republicans and the leaders of ICE and Customs and Border Protection, who argue that the face coverings will prevent their agents from being doxxed.
Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., sent the proposals to the White House but said the Trump administration’s response was “incomplete and inadequate in addressing Americans’ concerns about ICE’s lawless behavior.”
According to the emergency plan For DHS, the agency expects about 20,000 of its 271,000 employees to be furloughed in the event of a government shutdown.
