Senate Democrats killed a vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday, holding the line on a partial government shutdown that now threatens to leave DHS workers without a paycheck by the end of the week. The cloture vote fell 50 to 45, ten short of the 60 needed to advance a full-year DHS spending bill.
Sen. John Fetterman was the only Democrat to break ranks, voting with every Republican to move the bill forward. Every other member of the minority caucus voted no, The Hill reported.
This is the second time in recent weeks that Democrats have blocked DHS funding. They also torpedoed a vote before the Presidents' Day recess, a move that guaranteed the shutdown would take effect. The pattern is no longer deniable: Democrats are choosing a shutdown over funding the department responsible for border security, immigration enforcement, the TSA, the Secret Service, and FEMA.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Tuesday that Republicans refuse to negotiate. His framing was predictable:
"So far, we've heard crickets from them. Nothing. They're not negotiating."
He added that Republicans are "just trying to pass paper back and forth with no new changes." But the facts tell a different story. Appropriators struck a bipartisan deal on this bill back in January. It passed the House with the support of six moderate Democrats. The framework already exists.
What changed? Democrats began demanding reforms to how the Trump administration carries out immigration enforcement. Schumer specified that his caucus wants unmasked agents and tightened warrant requirements. In other words, they want to use the DHS funding bill as leverage to handcuff ICE operations.
Republicans, meanwhile, point out that the Democrats' most recent proposal, submitted about a week ago, largely mirrors the same 10-point plan they opened with. Senate Majority Leader John Thune described the ongoing talks as "informal" and said he's still searching for a "landing spot."
"The conversations — they continue, but I wouldn't say there's been a, necessarily, a breakthrough yet. … I hope that we get it funded."
The White House has yet to make a formal counteroffer. But the absence of a counteroffer doesn't change who is blocking the vote. Republicans have 50 votes to fund DHS right now. Democrats have 45 votes to keep it shut down.
With negotiations stalled, the administration has shifted tactics. Over the weekend, DHS suspended enrollment in Global Entry and TSA PreCheck. The PreCheck decision was quickly reversed, but the Global Entry suspension remains in place.
Sen. Mark Warner called the move "a political stunt," claiming Global Entry served more than 18 million travelers in 2025, saved more than 300,000 officer hours, and operated at 79 entry ports. He insisted the program exists for "pre-approved, low-risk travelers" and that the administration "should be focused on working with us on real solutions, not on inflicting pain for American travelers."
FEMA has also paused non-emergency recovery work. Members of Congress will no longer receive courtesy airport escorts. These are the downstream consequences of a funding lapse that Democrats had the power to prevent twice.
Sen. Dick Durbin tried to flip the accountability question, invoking the shooting of Alex Pretti by immigration agents in Minneapolis and the broader public reaction:
"The administration's got to sit down in good faith and bargain. The American people have seen this firsthand through the videos. They know exactly what happened in the streets of Minneapolis and the streets of Chicago. They know there has to be a change."
This is the real tell. Democrats aren't holding up DHS funding because of a line-item dispute or a spending disagreement. They are using the power of the purse to force changes to immigration enforcement policy. The Minneapolis incident and the protests that followed gave them the emotional ammunition they needed to justify the blockade.
But funding DHS and debating enforcement tactics are two separate things. About 90 percent of DHS workers are deemed essential and continue to work through the shutdown. That includes 95 percent of TSA workers. They just won't get paid for it at the end of this week. Democrats are punishing federal employees to extract immigration concessions.
Here's what makes the Democrat strategy particularly hollow: ICE remains fully funded. The $75 billion allocated for border operations in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act keeps enforcement running regardless of whether this spending bill passes. The shutdown doesn't stop deportation flights. It doesn't pull agents off the border. It doesn't change a single immigration policy.
What it does is:
All of this to extract concessions on enforcement policy that the funding bill was never designed to address. Democrats already survived a record 43-day shutdown in the fall. They appear willing to test whether the public has the stomach for another one.
Durbin insists "people across this country know who's holding this up." He's right about that, just not in the way he thinks.
Thune expressed hope that a breakthrough is imminent, noting that "sincere discussions" are underway from "at least from a White House standpoint, and hopefully from the Democrat standpoint as well." When asked whether remarks from President Trump might affect negotiations, Schumer offered a four-word answer: "It depends on what he says."
The posture reveals everything. Democrats aren't negotiating from principle. They're waiting for leverage. They blocked funding before the recess to create the shutdown, and they blocked it again on Tuesday to extend it. Every day the shutdown continues, they bank on the pressure falling on the administration rather than on the 45 senators who voted to keep DHS unfunded.
Meanwhile, TSA agents screen bags without knowing when their next paycheck arrives. FEMA recovery workers sit idle. And the only immigration enforcement Democrats actually managed to disrupt is the Global Entry program used by millions of law-abiding American citizens.
That's not a negotiating strategy. That's a hostage situation with the wrong people in the room.