The odds are very high that on Friday, February 13, the ongoing dispute over immigration enforcement will lead to an indefinite shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security — but only the parts that have nothing to do with immigration.

Yes, that is counterintuitive. But ICE, the Border Control, and the other masked agents of DHS were given a separate, and very large, source of funding in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That means they are essentially exempt from any government shutdown or Democratic maneuver to curb their activities by denying them money. On January 31, Democrats forced a much larger (if partial) shutdown of the federal government in the wake of ICE and Border Patrol atrocities in Minneapolis. After a few days, the two parties struck a deal to resume funding for most of the government. This included a short-term stopgap funding bill for DHS to provide a window for negotiations over immigration enforcement … which have gone exactly nowhere. So barring a change of heart between now and Friday, FEMA, TSA, the........

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