Politics
DHS shutdown explained: Who works without pay, what happens to airports and disaster response
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A partial government shutdown is all but certain after Senate Democrats rejected attempts to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offered by Republicans on Thursday afternoon.
But it will not look like the record-long 43-day full shutdown that paralyzed Congress last year, nor will it look like the shorter four-day partial shutdown that hit Capitol Hill earlier this month. That’s because Congress has already funded roughly 97% of the government through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2026 on Sept. 30.
When the clock strikes 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 14, just DHS will be affected by a lapse in its federal funding. While it’s a vastly smaller scale than other recent fiscal fights, it will still have an impact on a broad range of issues given DHS’s wide jurisdiction.
SCHUMER, DEMS CHOOSE PARTIAL SHUTDOWN AS NEGOTIATIONS HIT IMPASSE
A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer stands near a security checkpoint. (Michael Ciaglo / Getty Images)
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Disruptions to the TSA, whose agents are responsible for security checks at nearly 440 airports across the country, could perhaps be the most impactful part of the partial shutdown to Americans’ everyday lives.
Acting Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told lawmakers at a hearing on Wednesday that around 95% of TSA employees — roughly 61,000 people — are deemed essential and will be forced to work without pay in the event of a shutdown.
McNeill said many TSA agents were still recovering from the effects of the recent 43-day shutdown. “We heard reports of officers sleeping in their cars at airports to save money on gas, selling their blood and plasma, and taking on second jobs to make ends meet,” she said.
TSA paychecks due to be issued on March 3 could see agents getting reduced pay depending on the length of the shutdown. Agents would not be at risk of missing a full paycheck until March 17.
If that happens, however, Americans could see delays or even cancellations at the country’s busiest airports as TSA agents are forced to call out of work and get second jobs to make ends meet.
SHUTDOWN CLOCK TICKS AS SCHUMER, DEMOCRATS DIG IN ON DHS FUNDING DEMANDS
Coast Guard
The U.S. Coast Guard is the only branch of the armed forces under DHS rather than the Department of War, and as such would likely see reduced operations during a shutdown.
That includes a pause in training for pilots, air crews and boat crews until funding is restarted.
Admiral Thomas Allan, Coast Guard Vice Commandant, warned lawmakers that it would have to “suspend all missions, except those for national security or the protection of life and property.”
A lapse in its funding would also result in suspended pay for 56,000 active duty, reserve, and civilian personnel, which Allan warned would negatively affect morale and recruitment efforts.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks at a press conference following the passage of government funding bills, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 30, 2026. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Secret Service
The U.S. Secret Service (USSS), which is critical to protecting the president and key members of the administration, is also under DHS’s purview.
While its core functions would be largely unaffected by a shutdown, some 94% of the roughly 8,000 people the service employs would be forced to work without pay until the standoff is resolved.
Deputy USSS Director Matthew Quinn also warned that a shutdown could also hurt the progress being made to improve the service in the wake of the July 2024 assassination attempt against President Donald Trump.
“The assassination attempt on President Trump’s life brought forward hard truths for our agency and critical areas for improvement — air, space, security, communications and IT infrastructure, hiring and retention training, overarching technological improvements,” Quinn said. “We are today on the cusp of implementing generational change for our organization. A shutdown halts our reforms and undermines the momentum that we, including all of you, have worked so hard to build together.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
ICE operations would largely go on unimpeded during a shutdown, despite Democrats’ outrage at the agency being the main driver of the current standoff.
Nearly 20,000 of ICE’s roughly 21,000 employees are deemed “essential” and therefore must work without pay, according to DHS shutdown guidance issued in September 2025.
But even though it’s the center of Democrats’ funding protest, ICE has already received an injection of some $75 billion over the course of four years from Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). It means many of its core functions retain some level of funding even during a shutdown.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
CISA is responsible for defending critical U.S. sectors like transportation, healthcare, and energy from foreign and domestic threats.
The agency would be forced to reduce operations to an active threat mitigation status and activities “essential to protecting and protecting life and property,” according to Acting CISA Director Madhu Gottumukkala.
That means a shutdown would significantly reduce CISA’s capacity to proactively monitor for potential threats from foreign adversaries.
“We will be on the defensive, reactive as opposed to being proactive, and strategic in terms of how we will be able to combat those adversaries,” Gottumukkala said.
Operations like “cyber response, security assessments, stakeholder engagements, training, exercises, and special event planning” would all be impacted, he said.
A U.S. Secret Service police officer stands outside the White House the day after President Donald Trump announced U.S. military strikes on nuclear sites in Iran on June 22, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
FEMA, one of the largest recipients of congressional funding under DHS, would also likely see reduced operations if a shutdown went on for long enough.
The bright spot for the agency is that past congressional appropriations have left its Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), the main coffer used to respond to natural disasters throughout the U.S., with roughly $7 billion.
The DRF could become a serious problem if the DHS shutdown goes on for more than a month, however, or in the event of an unforeseen “catastrophic disaster,” an official warned.
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FEMA is also currently working through a backlog of responses to past natural disasters, progress that Associate Administrator of the Office of Response and Recovery Gregg Phillips said could be interrupted during a shutdown.
“In the 45 days I’ve been here…we have spent $3 billion in 45 days on 5,000 projects,” Phillips said. “We’re going as fast as we can. We’re committed to reducing the backlog. I can’t go any faster than we actually are. And if this lapses, that’s going to stop.”
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President Donald Trump marked Cinco de Mayo on Tuesday with a new Truth Social post featuring a stylized “NICE” graphic — a play on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
The post adds to a string of Cinco de Mayo messages from Trump that have repeatedly drawn attention online, including his widely shared 2016 taco bowl post that resurfaces nearly every year around the holiday.
Trump has frequently used the holiday to share posts blending humor, politics and immigration messaging; and had already publicly embraced the “NICE” branding concept ahead of Tuesday’s post.
The image shared Tuesday featured an eagle-and-shield design above the word “NICE,” styled similarly to federal law enforcement branding and appearing to reference ICE.
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A stylized graphic reading “NICE,” a reference to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, features an eagle and shield design in an image shared by President Donald Trump on Cinco de Mayo. (@realDonaldTrump via X)
Trump endorsed the idea of rebranding ICE as “NICE” in a late April Truth Social post, writing: “GREAT IDEA!!! DO IT.”
The phrase originated from a social media suggestion that Trump later amplified online.
The latest post also brought renewed attention to Trump’s most recognizable Cinco de Mayo moment.
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President Donald Trump poses with a taco bowl at Trump Tower in a Cinco de Mayo post shared in 2016. (@realDonaldTrump via X)
In 2016, then-candidate Trump posted a photo of himself eating a taco bowl at Trump Tower alongside the caption: “Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!”
The post quickly went viral and has continued resurfacing online in the years since.
The image showed Trump seated at a desk with a taco bowl in front of him, giving a thumbs up as he posed for the camera.
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The emblem of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears on a smartphone screen with the U.S. flag displayed on a laptop screen in Athens, Greece, on Feb. 3, 2026. (Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto)
Last year, Trump reshared the taco bowl post and wrote: “This was so wonderful, 9 years ago today!”
The post continues to go viral online as users revisit the original taco bowl image each year on the holiday.
One user posted an image of the president’s original 2016 taco bowl post, writing, “Cinco de Trumpo.”
Another commenter wrote, “such a classic,” and another quipped, “maybe the greatest tweet of all time.”
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Trump’s original taco bowl post remains one of the most recognizable Cinco de Mayo moments of the social media era.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
SACRAMENTO — State elections officials warned voters Tuesday to send their mail-in ballots in early after changes at the U.S. Postal Service that have led to slower mail service throughout California.
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber said vote-by-mail ballots should be put in the mail at least a week before the June 2 election.
The officials also cast skepticism about social media posts that urge Democrats to vote “late” and to rally around one candidate in order to ensure a Republican doesn’t win. The posts are similar in wording and have spread on Facebook in the last week.
Bonta said the posts, which were brought up by The Times at a news conference in Sacramento, could be “misinformation” or “disinformation” and “potentially unlawful.”
“Get your ballot in the mail at least a week early,” he said. “You want to make sure your vote is counted. And the misinformation that you’re referencing is the misinformation we’re trying to combat.”
Voters using the postal service to mail their ballot within a week of the election should go inside the post office and ask that their ballot be postmarked, or can drop off their ballot at a secure voter box, officials said.
The new guidance comes after sweeping changes made by the Postal Service last year that has reduced the number of trips to pick up mail at post offices in mostly rural areas in the country, including California.
A Times analysis of last year’s November special election found that there was a significantly higher number of mail-in ballots that arrived too late to be counted compared with the 2024 election.
Rural counties saw some of the biggest increase in rejected ballots because they came in too late, The Times found.
The changes to the Postal Service are nationwide, but are particularly relevant in California because the vast majority of people vote in the state using mail-in ballots.
Voters who mail a ballot on election day, or even two days before, may not see their vote counted because it will arrive too late, Bonta told reporters.
“You want your vote to be counted, I want your vote to be counted,” Bonta said. “If you vote earlier, you maximize that possibility that it will.”
Vote-by-mail ballots are considered late if they are not postmarked on or ahead of election day or if the postmarked ballots do not arrive within seven days of the election.
Weber’s office also said it would look into a recent trend of social posts that urge California Democrats to “vote late” in the June 2 election.
The posts, which have appeared on Facebook and Instagram, are similar in wording, and tell Democrats to hold off from voting early to ensure that two Republican don’t make the two top spots, and to rally around one Democrat.
California’s primary election system allows the two candidates who received the most votes to advance to the November election, regardless of party.
With many Democrats crowding the ballot this year, some Democratic leaders have expressed concern fear that two Republicans — businessman Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — will take the top two spots because Democratic voters will be splintered among the party’s top seven candidates.
The validity of the social media posts are under scrutiny.
One post on Facebook last week, for instance, purports to be written by historian Heather Cox Richardson. The post warned voters not to vote until after all the debates in California have concluded and the front-runner is clear.
Richardson told The Times that she’s not connected to the post. “I didn’t write it and we can’t figure out who did,” she said in an email. “I haven’t — and won’t — take any position in a primary.”
The last statewide election in California was closely watched after the U.S. Department of Justice said would monitor polling sites in some California counties after a request by California Republican Party officials.
However, the election proceeded without any incident.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday sent a letter to elections officials in the state’s 58 counties that highlighted recent legislation mandating that California ballots be counted within 13 days, instead of 30 days. Newsom thanked the elections staff for their work and urged a speedy vote count.
“We must acknowledge that the longer the voting count takes,” Newsom wrote, “the more mis- and disinformation spreads.”
The Education Department has opened a civil rights investigation into whether Smith College, the women’s school in Northampton, Mass., violated anti-discrimination laws by allowing transgender students to enroll.
The inquiry broadens the Trump administration’s bid to limit rights for the nation’s transgender students by targeting school admissions for the first time. Until now, the administration had mostly targeted policies that allowed for transgender women to participate in women’s sports and use women’s bathrooms.
By investigating Smith, the administration is raising the question of whether allowing transgender women to enroll at a women’s college — and providing access to “women-only” spaces such as bathrooms, dormitories and locker rooms — violates civil rights protections for women.
Kimberly Richey, the assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, said in a statement that “an all-women’s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males.”
“Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness and compliance under federal law,” Ms. Richey said. “The Trump administration will continue to uphold the law and fight to restore common sense.”
The college issued a statement acknowledging the investigation and stating that it remained “fully committed to its institutional values, including compliance with civil rights laws.”
About 4.7 percent of college students identify as transgender, according to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, a group of doctors and scientists that has called for more government regulation of pediatric gender medicine.
The federal investigation was in response to a civil-rights complaint filed by Defending Education, a nonprofit group founded in 2021 that has become one of the leading voices in the growing parents’ rights movement. Several of the group’s complaints have sparked federal civil rights investigations during the past year, and its research is often cited during congressional hearings by conservative lawmakers.
Formerly known as Parents Defending Education, the Arlington, Va.-based group posted on its website a letter from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights on Monday announcing the investigation into Smith.
Smith, one of the nation’s largest women’s schools with about 2,500 students, has been admitting transgender students since 2015, along with several other top women’s colleges. The issue became a lightning rod at women’s colleges after a transgender applicant was denied acceptance to Smith in 2013 because her gender identity did not match her financial aid forms.
Since then, most women’s colleges updated their admissions policies to welcome transgender applicants. One notable exception has been Sweet Briar College in central Virginia, which does not admit transgender students and helps students in transition transfer to another college.
The Trump administration resolved 30 percent fewer civil rights complaints in the nation’s schools in 2025 compared with the Biden administration in 2024, the sharpest year-over-year decline in at least three decades. But the new administration has opened more than 40 civil rights investigations into schools and other educational institutions that provide protections for transgender students.
The Education Department has taken the unusual step of backing out of civil rights agreements that previous administrations negotiated to protect transgender students. The government has also sued state education departments and high school athletic associations in California and Minnesota over policies that permit transgender athletes to participate in school sports.
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