‘six Months To Catch Up’: What The Shutdown Cost Dhs

The record-breaking Department of Homeland Security shutdown might be over — but the damage is already done to some of the agency’s critical missions, including disaster response and airport security screening just weeks before the summer travel season begins.

The 76-day shutdown added pressure to an agency already in turmoil, stalling key projects and forcing some staff to work without pay for part of it. Some employees, especially at the Transportation Security Administration, simply quit, and replacing them won’t be easy or quick. Meanwhile, the Memorial Day kickoff of the summer travel season looms — and hurricane season starts June 1.

Two FEMA staffers, who, like others in the story, were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said the shutdown has exacerbated concerns about preparation for hurricanes and other severe summer weather. Though hurricane season begins in June, severe weather, which can also include tornadoes and deadly flash flooding, has been happening earlier in recent years.

“There are huge impacts between them dismantling our agency and lack of preparation for the season,” said one of the staffers, referring to the Trump administration’s cuts to mitigation programs and the FEMA workforce last year. “We are in very bad shape for hurricane season.”

Officials within DHS and people close to the administration are relieved to see funding restored, but they acknowledge that the lapse slowed key priorities. For months, officials’ felt “stuck in the sand,” said a person close to the administration, who added that DHS will now be able to use the funding as a “springboard and start moving forward.”

Secretary Markwayne Mullin, in an interview with Fox News on Friday, said the shutdown, which has also impacted staffing at the agency in charge of cybersecurity, has hurt morale. He also pointed to the shutdown’s impact on the Coast Guard, where the funding delay has delayed licensing some 18,000 commercial and private boats.

“There will be ripple effects for months,” he said. “It will take us roughly six months to get caught up just from the backlog.”

DHS did not respond to a request for comment.

Some critics say the stage for kneecapping FEMA was set by former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who instituted a process that required any contract or grant exceeding $100,000 had to be approved by her or another top DHS official. The International Association of Emergency Managers, a nonprofit membership group, has been critical of that policy and praised Mullin for lifting it.

The shutdown’s aftermath will also haunt TSA, whose workforce has suffered not only under this funding lapse, but a prior one in the fall as well. More than 1,100 screeners have quit since the latest shutdown began in February, and morale remains low inside the agency as the U.S. prepares for the busy summer travel months and major events including America 250 and the World Cup.

U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman said in a statement Thursday that there are “no real winners in a shutdown,” adding that the way in which Congress has used government shutdowns to “advance political goals” carries “real consequences for our national security and the traveling public.”

“Just weeks until the World Cup, our preparedness has taken a step backward,” Freeman said. “We emerge from this disruption weaker, not stronger.”

And funding for immigration agencies at the heart of the fight on Capitol Hill is still in progress.

At President Donald Trump’s urging, Republicans will next turn to enacting tens of billions of dollars for Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement through a party-line reconciliation package. The shutdown’s uncertainty has taken a toll on ICE and CBP staffers, particularly professional and civilian support staff who missed paychecks in the early weeks of funding lapse, said an administration official. Frontline law enforcement officers at ICE and CBP — as well as those hired with “One Big Beautiful Bill” funding — were not impacted.

It’s a “huge misconception” that all of ICE and Border Patrol have been unscathed during the shutdown, the official said.

Democrats have resisted providing more money to ICE and CBP without additional guardrails placed around immigration enforcement after the administration’s deadly operation in Minneapolis this year. Democrats have also questioned why the Trump administration needs more funding when it received billions from last year’s GOP megalaw — what they have argued is a blank check with little accountability.

House Republicans succeeded this week in adopting a framework to unlock a special budget authority to bypass the Senate filibuster. They are now working to to draft and pass a party-line bill of up to $75 billion — with a June 1 deadline set by Trump.