Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sounded the alarm this week on what the ongoing DHS funding lapse means for national security, warning that preparations for the FIFA World Cup and America's 250th anniversary celebrations are stalling out as Democrats drag the shutdown into its third week.
Noem posted the warning on X:
The longer DHS goes without funding, the less prepared our nation will be for threats at the FIFA World Cup and America 250.
The World Cup kicks off in June. Eleven U.S. cities are set to host matches. And DHS has yet to award a single dollar from the more than $600 million FEMA grant program it announced months ago to enhance security and preparedness for those events. The anticipated award date was no later than January 30, 2026. That date came and went. The money sits frozen while Democrats play politics with the agency that's supposed to protect the country.
This isn't an abstraction. Significant portions of FEMA staff have been placed on administrative leave because of the funding lapse. Last weekend, DHS shut down TSA's Global Entry and PreCheck programs before reversing course on PreCheck. Nine grant awards were supposed to go out to help host cities prepare for the largest sporting event ever held on American soil. None have.
Gregg Phillips, FEMA's Associate Administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery, testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee ahead of the shutdown that the Disaster Relief Fund had sufficient balances for emergency response "for the foreseeable future," Spectrum News reports, he also warned it could "undermine our readiness for major incidents."
Readiness is the word that should keep people up at night. Three months from a global event drawing millions of visitors to American cities, the agency responsible for coordinating security preparations is operating on fumes.
The DHS funding fight traces back to two people killed in Minneapolis by federal agents during the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations. Democrats seized on the incident to demand changes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as their price for restoring DHS funding.
That's the trade Democrats are offering: weaken immigration enforcement, or the department responsible for counterterrorism, border security, and event preparedness stays dark.
President Trump framed it plainly during his State of the Union address Tuesday, saying Democrats have "closed the agency responsible for protecting Americans from terrorists and murderers" while he demanded full funding be restored. He also noted there was no money to "help people clean up the snow" after storms battered the Northeast.
Noem was just as direct:
This Democrat shutdown directly impacts DHS's ability to keep Americans safe at these events and our national security.
Senate efforts to push funding through fell flat this week. Republicans need the support of a handful of Democrats to pass funding bills in the Senate. Those votes haven't materialized.
The White House sent a new counteroffer to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Friday regarding potential changes to immigration enforcement practices. Spokespeople for the pair said they "are reviewing it closely."
Their joint statement included the claim that "Democrats remain committed to keep fighting for real reforms to rein in ICE and stop the violence."
Schumer, asked about the state of negotiations, put it this way:
All they have to do is agree with our simple ideas that every police department, just about, in America follows and we'll get it all done — plain and simple.
Simple. Just gut enforcement at the border and inside the country, and Democrats will graciously allow the government to fund the department that keeps airports running and World Cup venues safe. That's the offer on the table.
This is the third funding disruption in recent memory. A record-long government-wide shutdown this past fall was driven primarily by the health care debate. A short partial shutdown followed earlier this year. Now DHS stands alone in the cold because Democrats decided immigration enforcement was worth holding hostage.
Each time, the leverage play is the same: shut down the machinery of government, then blame the other side for the consequences. But the consequences here aren't theoretical budget line items. They're security gaps at stadiums that will hold tens of thousands of people in a matter of weeks.
Trump and congressional Republicans already allocated money to ICE and Customs and Border Protection through the "one big, beautiful bill" signed into law this past summer. The enforcement infrastructure exists. Democrats want to dismantle it as a condition of funding the rest of the department. That's not negotiation. It's ransom.
June doesn't move. The World Cup will arrive whether Washington has its act together or not. Eleven cities need security plans, personnel deployments, and coordination between federal, state, and local law enforcement. That work requires money, staff, and lead time. Every day the shutdown continues is a day that preparation window shrinks.
More than $600 million was earmarked for this. Zero has been distributed. FEMA personnel who should be working on readiness are sitting at home on administrative leave.
Democrats say they want to rein in ICE. What they're actually reining in is the country's ability to protect itself during the biggest event it will host this decade. The world will be watching in June. Right now, so is every adversary who knows exactly how thin American security preparation has been stretched.
