Wait, Did the Democrats Just Win a Government Shutdown Fight?

They didn’t get the ICE reforms they’d demanded, but they uncharacteristically held the line until the Republicans caved. That’s deeply meaningful to the party’s base.

For 41 days, Senate Republicans refused to entertain any bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security that did not include funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. On Friday, in the dead of night, they caved and passed a bill that did exactly that, ending a shutdown that—because the Transportation Security Administration, like ICE and CBP, is part of DHS—had brought chaos and historic wait times to U.S. airports. That bill will now move to the House of Representatives, where it will need significant Democratic support to pass, while ICE and CBP funding will be kicked to the budget reconciliation process. It was a deal that Democrats had been offering for weeks; on Friday morning, the Republicans took it without receiving anything in return.

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.

Still, this is a win. In context, it is actually a pretty big one, given that Democrats have no real power in Washington. But it also raises a more vexing question: Where do they go from here?

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........

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