Analysis by

[Aaron Blake]

1 hr 22 min ago

PUBLISHED Mar 23, 2026, 2:40 PM ET

Federal agencies US shutdown Immigration Aviation news

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents patrol at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday.

Adam Gray/Reuters

The Department of Homeland Security has been shut down for more than a month. But extremely long and growing TSA wait times have created newfound political urgency to reach a deal.

That — along with lawmakers wanting to leave town for an Easter break by the end of the week — means there could soon be some movement. The debate over funding the agency has repeatedly stalled, as Democrats have demanded changes to how federal immigration enforcement operates and Republicans have resisted.

But which direction are the talks going? And who has more leverage here?

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It’s a little more difficult to say than it has been in past shutdowns. Still, there are some early clues.

Poll suggests some possible Democratic leverage

There hasn’t been much polling on the shutdown, in large part because the war with Iran has dominated the political zeitgeist over the past four weeks. But a poll released Sunday suggests that Democrats might have more leverage than Republicans — though the numbers are not necessarily definitive.

The [CBS News-YouGov poll] showed 31% of Americans said that Democrats’ position was worth having a partial shutdown, while 36% said it was not worth it (the rest were not sure). That’s a negative five-point gap.

But Americans were even less favorable when asked about Republicans holding their hard line against those changes. While 23% said the GOP’s position was worth having the partial shutdown, 42% said it was not.

That’s a minus-19, compared to the minus-five for Democrats’ position.

So what does this suggest? Democrats could have leverage to hold out, but not necessarily for major concessions.

The numbers are actually slightly better for Democrats than at the start of the larger government shutdown in early October. At the time, [CBS data] showed the Democrats’ position was minus-12 (28% worth a shutdown vs. 40% not worth a shutdown), while the GOP’s was minus-22 (23%-45%).

That might make Democrats feel more confident that they can hold out. And other polling has suggested some of the party’s demands — things like ICE agents not wearing masks and requiring judicial warrants for immigration raids — are individually pretty popular.

But remember: Even as the polls appeared pretty favorable to Democrats during the larger shutdown late last year, they eventually gave up with relatively little in the way of a bona fide GOP concession on their primary demand: extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.

Trump’s new x-factors

All of that being said, sometimes the best indicator of how a shutdown is progressing is which side feels compelled to do something.

Right now, that’s Trump and the GOP.

President Donald Trump enters his limousine as he arrives at the Memphis Air National Guard Base in Tennessee on Monday.

Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

While Democrats have appeared pretty resolute in their demands, there are signs of movement on the GOP side.

For one, some GOP lawmakers are trying to separate Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spending from the rest of the DHS funding and pass the latter now. They would then deal with ICE funding in a later reconciliation bill that might need only a majority rather than 60 votes to pass. (The White House appears resistant to this idea, at least for now.)

Secondly, Trump this weekend suddenly announced that ICE agents would be helping at airports, which could suggest that he’s afraid he and his party might shoulder the blame for the long security wait times.

By contrast, during the broader government shutdown last year, Trump actually took steps to increase the pain of the shutdown rather than to try to ease it — at least for certain populations, most notably those who were relying on government assistance for food.

And lastly, as Trump often does, he has thrown a wrench in negotiations. He said Sunday that he would demand any DHS deal include the “SAVE America Act,” a bill mostly focused on changes to the elections process that clearly doesn’t have the votes to pass the Senate.

It’s clear Trump just really wants his voting bill passed. But now he risks making it look like he’s the one prolonging the shutdown.

Democrats can already credibly argue that Republicans could have voted to fund the Transportation Security Administration and end the airport chaos if they wanted to; Senate Republicans have objected to such attempts by Democrats to fund the agency.

Now it’s Trump who’s adding demands — except his don’t appear to be as popular as the Democrats’ and aren’t even really related.

People might not be paying close enough attention

There are still significant hurdles to Democrats getting something major out of this shutdown. And high on that list is that people just might not be tuned in right now.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer holds a press conference about Democrats demands for immigration enforcement reform, in February.

Kent Nishimura/Reuters

It’s been two months since federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. And the administration has scaled back its immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and avoided similar high-profile controversies. It is also replacing Kristi Noem as head of DHS, which people might see as a significant concession.

Plus, the war with Iran has sucked up nearly all of the oxygen in the political room.

Given those immigration issues aren’t as front-and-center right now — the CBS poll showed just 20% are following the shutdown “very closely” — it’s not clear that there will be the same kind of urgency behind Democrats’ demands as we might have seen two months ago.

That doesn’t mean what Democrats are asking for isn’t popular; it just means it might not carry the day as much — or be viewed as worth what’s happening at airports.

Though somewhat ironically, Trump’s new move to put ICE agents at airports could seemingly remind people about their problems with aggressive immigration enforcement. Trump even says the agents could be making arrests at airports, which, if true, could open its own can of worms.

What’s clear is that the politics of this debate are coming to a head. Stay tuned.

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