DHS Shutdown Endures Over 10 Weeks in Government Shutdown 2026
The Department of Homeland Security has been shut down for more than 10 weeks during government shutdown 2026, but immigration enforcement has kept going because Congress previously gave Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement substantial long-term funding. Core immigration enforcement work is also one of the functions the executive branch has consistently treated as excepted during a shutdown.
That has kept detention, removal and enforcement operations running at substantial capacity even as other government activities have been curtailed. The administration has also used immigration-related funding to pay Transportation Security Administration employees.
Antideficiency Act limits
Shutdowns are not self-executing. Within statutory limits, the executive branch decides which activities continue, and the Antideficiency Act bars agencies from obligating or spending more than available appropriations and from accepting voluntary services.
When funding runs out, the law generally requires agencies to furlough employees whose salaries depend on those lapsed funds. The act also includes an emergency exception for emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property, and work that fits that exception is treated as excepted.
Justice Department guidance
The Department of Justice has operationalized that exception by allowing agencies to keep functions going when they have a reasonable and articulable connection to the safety of human life or the protection of property. It has also required a reasonable likelihood that delay would compromise that safety or protection to a significant degree.
Employees assigned to excepted work must keep working without pay during the shutdown. Their compensation is restored only after the shutdown ends, which leaves the executive branch able to preserve some coercive government functions while other operations stop.
Congress and enforcement
Congress can use shutdowns in extreme cases to cut off funding for unlawful executive action, and the most relevant functions for that power are coercive ones such as immigration enforcement, law enforcement and the military. Those same functions are also where the emergency exception is most likely to apply.
That combination helps explain why DHS can remain partly closed for more than 10 weeks while immigration enforcement continues. The practical result for affected workers is simpler than the shutdown debate around it: people tied to excepted duties stay on the job without pay until funding is restored.
