Staff Reports
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is warning that the department is about to hit a financial wall, and Congress still has not done its job. After nearly three months of a DHS shutdown, the agency says its emergency money is nearly gone, and payroll for its more than 260,000 workers is on the brink of interruption.
Mullin said DHS spends a little over $1.6 billion every two weeks on payroll and has already burned through its emergency reserve, meaning the department is approaching the point where it cannot keep paying workers or covering basic operations. That is not some accounting footnote; it affects the Coast Guard, TSA, ICE, and the rest of the department’s mission to keep the country secure.
The shutdown has already produced real-world damage, including longer airport lines, staffing shortages, and mounting pressure on frontline employees who are still reporting for duty without stable pay. Homeland security is not supposed to be a bargaining chip in a partisan standoff, yet Democrats have treated it that way by demanding immigration-enforcement changes before reopening the department.
Republicans have argued that the answer is simple: fund the department, reopen DHS, and then fight over policy in the normal legislative process. That is the responsible position, because a nation cannot secure its border, screen travelers, or fight drug trafficking when the agency charged with doing those jobs is starved of cash.
The larger scandal is that Washington allowed this crisis to drag on long enough to put national security workers in the impossible position of serving the public while wondering when their next paycheck will arrive. Congress should stop posturing, reject the open-border theatrics, and restore full funding immediately before the damage becomes even harder to undo.
