Congress is threatening a government shutdown over border security policy. But the agency at the center of the dispute is largely insulated from one. That is by design.

Last summer, Congress used budget reconciliation to lock in years of record funding for immigration and border enforcement. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act provided roughly $170 billion for immigration and border activities, including $75 billion for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency alone. To put that into perspective, the fiscal year 2024 ICE budget was less than $10 billion, and the entire Department of Homeland Security (DHS) budget was a little over $60 billion. The OBBBA money is available through 2029 and sits largely outside the annual appropriations process. Whatever happens this week, border enforcement operations could continue largely uninterrupted.

That is the backdrop for the funding deadline now bearing down on Washington. With government funding set to expire at midnight on January 30, lawmakers are once again warning of a partial shutdown. This is not just another episode of bad timing or partisan brinkmanship. It is a clear example of how Congress’s budget choices have reshaped what oversight and accountability even look like when events on the ground demand a response.

Heading into last weekend, a package of six appropriations bills—including Labor, Health and Human Services; Transportation and Housing and Urban Development; State and Foreign Operations; Treasury and General Government; Defense; and Homeland Security—appeared ready to pass. The House approved the package and adjourned. Nearly four months into the fiscal year, it looked like the 2026 budget was finally finished.

Then Customs and Border Patrol agents fatally shot another American citizen during immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis.

In response, opposition to the Homeland Security bill as drafted has grown. Democrats are demanding that DHS be removed from the six-bill package so Congress can negotiate changes to enforcement operations, including warrant requirements, agent identification, and cooperation with state and local investigations. Absent a compromise, another shutdown.

If the current package fails, the consequences will be real. Civilian Pentagon employees could be furloughed while active-duty troops work without pay. OSHA inspections could be suspended. Affordable housing and homelessness services could be disrupted. Programs at the CDC and NIH could suffer. Shutdowns also impose real economic costs, reducing GDP and disrupting private activity. Taxpayers ultimately foot the bill.

The problem is that Congress has traded its own authority for speed and partisan advantage. Lawmakers have abandoned the regular budget process in favor of shortcuts. Continuing resolutions freeze outdated priorities even as conditions change. Omnibus bills bundle unrelated programs together and force take-it-or-leave-it votes with little scrutiny. Budget reconciliation—once a tool for deficit reduction—has become the preferred vehicle for major policy precisely because it bypasses the filibuster and shuts out the opposition.

The result is a system that locks in policy choices years in advance while hollowing out oversight mechanisms. Hearings lose consequence. Appropriations become a secondary act, layered on top of decisions already made. When circumstances change—sometimes abruptly and tragically—threatening a shutdown becomes one of the few remaining levers, even when it largely misses the target.

In light of both the urgency of the debate over border enforcement and the need to fund the rest of government, the most responsible path forward is to separate the DHS bill from the broader package. Congress could then enact a short-term Continuing Resolution for DHS, avoiding disruption of the Department’s operations, like FEMA and TSA, while negotiations continue without holding unrelated agencies hostage. That would require the House to return and vote again. It would not fix the deeper problem, but it would at least avoid compounding it by using a shutdown as a substitute for oversight.

Absent that, this cycle will repeat. Major policy will continue to be locked in through budgetary workarounds. Oversight will arrive late, if at all. And Congress will keep responding to its own self-inflicted constraints by threatening shutdowns that punish taxpayers while leaving the underlying problem untouched.