Department of Homeland Security Shuts Down, Though Essential Work Continues

Though funding for the department ran out early Saturday, officials said its essential functions would continue.

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed early Saturday morning, beginning a shutdown that was not expected to bring most of the department’s work to a halt yet could disrupt travelers, immigration enforcement and disaster relief if it is prolonged.

Department officials have said that its essential missions and functions would continue. During last fall’s government shutdown, more than 90 percent of the department’s employees were required to keep working.

But department officials have warned that many employees would be working without pay, posing a financial strain as their bills come due. During previous shutdowns, for instance, the Transportation Security Administration saw a spike in resignations because they were required to report to work without being paid. Work force shortages caused some screening delays at airports in Houston during last fall’s record-long shutdown.

The shutdown is the result of a partisan divide in Congress over new guardrails on federal immigration enforcement. Democrats have pushed for a range of new restrictions on immigration agents, such as mandating that officers remove masks during enforcement operations and that they obtain warrants from judges to make arrests in homes. Many of their demands have met resistance from Republicans.

The shutdown will not affect the administration’s deportation campaign. Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told lawmakers on Thursday that immigration enforcement would mostly be unaffected, in large part because of the billions in funding Congress approved for the agency last summer as part of its major tax bill. Still, Mr. Lyons said that a shutdown would affect personnel issues, such as pay and retention.

The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general, an independent watchdog, will have to stop ongoing audits and investigations, though its criminal investigations will continue.

The inspector general is currently investigating several issues that are at the heart of the dispute between Democrats and Republicans, including whether ICE properly addresses the use of force by its agents, how federal immigration officers agents work to prevent detaining or arresting American citizens, and the conditions inside detention facilities.

It is unclear how long the shutdown could last. Members of Congress left Washington for a weeklong recess on Thursday. Republican leaders in Congress have said that negotiations would continue, and that members should be ready to return to Washington if an agreement is reached.

The Department of Homeland Security is vast and includes many agencies, such as the T.S.A., Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Customs and Border Protection.

About 95 percent of T.S.A.’s roughly 60,000 employees are required to work through a shutdown without being paid, Ha Nguyen McNeill, the agency’s acting administrator, told lawmakers this week.

Most FEMA employees are expected to continue working without pay, and agency leaders have said that its disaster relief fund has enough money for its current and anticipated emergency response activities. Still, the fund would be strained if a catastrophic disaster were to occur during the shutdown, according to agency leaders.

The Coast Guard’s uniformed personnel must also keep coming to work, and most are not expected to be paid until after the shutdown is over. Vice Adm. Thomas Allan, the acting vice commandant of the Coast Guard, said this week that a long shutdown would erode mission readiness and hurt morale. Certain training for pilots, aircrews and boat crews would stop, he said.

Although lawmakers had agreed to some limits on immigration enforcement when they negotiated the last funding bills of the fiscal year, Democrats pushed for more restrictions after two U.S. citizens were fatally shot by federal officers in Minnesota last month. On Thursday, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, announced that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota would end after more than two months and thousands of arrests in the region.

Michael Gold contributed reporting.

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