Is this what winning looks like? It certainly doesn’t feel like winning. The Democrats had embarked on the shutdown in an effort to push several ICE reforms, including a ban on face coverings, requiring judicial warrants for agents to enter private property, and stricter use-of-force standards and oversight. They did not gain any of them and, having helped end a painful shutdown, no longer have anything that could even charitably be described as “leverage.” ICE reform is all but dead and the agency is funded until 2028, thanks to last year’s reconciliation bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which nearly tripled ICE’s budget.
The Republicans thought they had the Democrats on the ropes—that they could leverage the airport chaos into victory. Surely the Democrats, desperate not to be blamed for hours-long lines and missed flights, would do what they always do when push comes to shove: cave. Instead, Republicans were the ones who gave in. And, though it comes with considerable caveats—namely the tens of billions already earmarked for immigration enforcement, and potentially more to come through reconciliation—the fact that ICE and CBP aren’t receiving additional funding right now does matter. Every additional dollar that went to those agencies would have helped fund the massive deportation machine this administration is overseeing.
That was February 14. And for a while, there were no apparent effects, so the shutdown continued amid half-hearted negotiations between the two parties. But then TSA employees started missing paychecks and stopped showing up for work, and Republicans and Democrats started getting serious about resolving the fight. When they couldn’t agree on reforms, they settled on the off-ramp of funding all of DHS except ICE and CBP—and by “they” I mean the five senators, two of them Democrats, who passed the measure in a voice-vote in a near-empty chamber in the middle of the night.
Whether House Republicans agree to take it is another matter altogether. The bomb throwers in the House Freedom Caucus have already slammed the Senate bill and demanded House Speaker Mike Johnson put forth a 60-day continuing resolution that funds all of DHS, including ICE and CBP—a non-starter in the Senate. Johnson doesn’t have the power to quash a revolt from his right flank, especially one that lines up with the president’s priorities, so he is dutifully following their lead, per Axios. Given the upcoming congressional recess, there’s a decent possibility that the shutdown will continue indefinitely. If it does, the Trump administration and congressional Republicans will shoulder even more blame for it than they do now.
In some ways, Friday’s deal recalls the deal Schumer reached last fall to reopen the government after 43 days. The Democrats had forced a shutdown over a demand to restore Obamacare subsidies that were causing healthcare costs to skyrocket. Then, on November 8, Schumer caved, striking a deal to reopen the government in exchange for practically nothing.
For a party with little in the way of real power, shutdowns are attractive because they suggest that something is being done—even if nothing really is. It’s a way to show the party’s core voters that it is fighting for the issues that matter most to them. The problem for elected Democrats is that they usually can’t stomach a long fight. They start to get indigestion as airport queues stretch out to the curb, wondering what this might do to their chances in the midterm elections. But this time around, the Democrats stood firm even as TSA wait times hit record levels. They showed their base that they could hold the line, and sure enough it was the Republicans who started panicking: Trump on Thursday said he’d sign an order to pay TSA employees.
That said, it’s not clear what congressional Democrats can do now, that they’ve given up their last sliver of leverage over ICE and CBP, to satisfy a base that is desperate for action and accountability—and unwilling to treat outmaneuvering Republicans alone as a victory. It may well be that they plan to do nothing. Although the Democrats’ overall posture has changed for the better, it’s still clear that Schumer would prefer his party stay out of the way and watch as Trump’s presidency implodes. This approach backfired at the start of Trump’s second term, when it only reinforced the Democrats’ weakness and inability to stop a lawless, rampaging administration. But now Trump is in freefall, trapped in a war he started that now threatens to destroy the global economy. Maybe, for once, Schumer’s strategy makes sense.
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