DHS funding lapse hits day 44, longest by duration on record

On 29 March 2026 the partial federal funding lapse confined to the Department of Homeland Security — in force since 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on 14 February 2026 — reached day 44, surpassing by one day the 43-day full shutdown of 1 October-12 November 2025 to become the longest federal funding lapse in US history by duration and the longest single-agency funding lapse on record.¹ The lapse remains confined to DHS; the other eleven FY2026 regular appropriations bills (MilCon-VA, Agriculture-FDA, Legislative Branch enacted 12 November 2025; Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy-Water Development, Interior-Environment enacted 23 January 2026; Defense, Labor-HHS-Education, Financial Services and General Government, State-Foreign Operations, T-HUD enacted 3 February 2026) remain enacted.² By comparison, the 22 December 2018-25 January 2019 partial shutdown of nine departments including DHS lasted 35 days under the prior multi-agency partial record; the present lapse is taxonomically distinct in scope (single-agency) but exceeds both prior events in duration.³

1. Under 31 U.S.C. § 1342, DHS retains “excepted” personnel performing work for the protection of life or property — including CBP officers and Border Patrol agents at ports of entry, ICE enforcement officers, TSA screeners, U.S. Coast Guard active-duty personnel, U.S. Secret Service protective details, and FEMA disaster-response personnel drawing on the multi-year Disaster Relief Fund balance — who continue to work without pay during the lapse.⁴⁵ Activities funded outside annual appropriations remain “exempt”: USCIS premium-processing and other fee accounts under 8 U.S.C. § 1356; certain TSA fee-funded activity; the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund’s multi-year balance. The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, Pub. L. 116-1, codified at 31 U.S.C. § 1341 note, guarantees retroactive pay to furloughed and excepted federal employees “at the employee’s standard rate of pay, at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations ends”; federal contractors have no equivalent statutory entitlement.⁶

2. Operational impacts compound with duration. TSA screening wait times have lengthened at major hub airports as excepted screener attrition rises (TSA throughput data via the TSA Daily Traveler Throughput series).⁷ FEMA’s appropriated readiness and grants activity has lapsed while the multi-year DRF balance continues to fund active disaster response. ICE detention capacity is contractually committed under intergovernmental service agreements (IGSAs) and contract-detention-facility (CDF) agreements with guaranteed-minimum bed-day payments that continue to accrue as liabilities during the lapse.⁸

3. The substantive dispute centres on immigration-enforcement policy riders attached to the DHS bill, including provisions on ICE funding and detention capacity; Senate cloture motions on successive short-term continuing resolutions have failed to reach 60 votes, with the Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s December 2025 commitment to a standalone Senate vote on extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits a parallel pressure point in the negotiation.⁹¹⁰ Federal- employee unions including AFGE and NTEU have publicly demanded congressional action; the prior 2018-19 shutdown produced AFGE’s Martin v. United States, No. 19-cv-00038 (Fed. Cl.), litigation over Fair Labor Standards Act minimum- wage and overtime obligations during the lapse.¹¹