As Washington braces for a partial government shutdown that would directly impact the Department of Homeland Security, the White House is making clear who it believes is responsible. According to senior administration officials, if DHS shuts down at midnight Friday, Democrats will be to blame.
“They’re going to shut the department down,” a senior White House official said during a call with reporters Thursday afternoon, referring to Senate Democrats. “They’re going to deprive Americans of critical services such as FEMA, such as TSA, and what will be the third partial government shutdown of this Congress.”
The official did not mince words. “Make no mistake, this is a Democrat-driven shutdown that is caused by their intransigence and desire to use government funding for services all Americans rely on as a hostage in order to achieve unrelated political goals,” the official said. “The administration remains interested in working with these guys in good faith, but we will not be held hostage on an issue that the president was elected on.”
The standoff escalated Thursday when Senate Democrats voted to block a motion to advance a House-passed bill that would fund DHS and more than 260,000 federal employees. The motion failed by a 52-47 vote, effectively rejecting what the White House described as an offer to compromise.
According to the administration, efforts to reach a bipartisan agreement date back to December, when the White House sought consensus on overall spending levels. Over the following months, officials say they engaged in bipartisan negotiations on the remaining appropriations bills, eventually reaching a deal on what they described as all outstanding measures.
However, in early February — following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti — Democrats “repudiated that agreement,” the senior official said. That move, according to the White House, jeopardized the broader bipartisan funding package that had already been negotiated.
In response to concerns raised by congressional Democrats, the administration agreed to what it characterized as a bipartisan compromise. Five of the six remaining appropriations bills would be passed as full-year measures, while DHS funding would be extended temporarily for two weeks.
That two-week extension now expires Friday at midnight, setting the stage for a partial shutdown if no agreement is reached.
The White House said Democrats sent a lengthy position letter on February 4 and followed up with legislative text on February 7. Administration officials reviewed the proposal over the weekend and responded Monday with what they described as a detailed and binding position paper.
“Those legislative specs are substantive, they are detailed, they are serious, and they are binding on the administration,” the senior official said, noting they were transmitted Wednesday evening.
Despite those efforts, the official said it appears Democrats are prepared to walk away from negotiations, allowing DHS funding to lapse.
While declining to negotiate specifics publicly, the White House acknowledged that judicial warrants remain one of the more challenging sticking points.
Still, the administration insists it is open to bipartisan feedback — but not at the expense of its core mission.
“The red line here is: [We’re] certainly happy to take feedback and work in a bipartisan way to ensure, as we’ve seen with Tom Homan in Minneapolis, that we’re enforcing immigration law in the optimal way possible,” the official said. “But the administration is not going to accept concessions that meaningfully affect its ability to carry out its immigration enforcement agenda.”
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