DHS Equipment, Contracts on Hold as Shutdown Impacts Linger (1)

Immigration enforcement agencies are grounding equipment and facing gaps in investigative work as the ongoing Department of Homeland Security funding lapse prevents them from paying contractors who maintain critical assets, top officials told lawmakers.

“Patrol boats, planes — they are parked,” Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said Thursday during a hearing before the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee. He warned that unpaid service providers have left vehicles and equipment offline and raised concerns about the agency’s ability to sustain border operations.

“We can’t pay them as promised,” Scott said.

Todd Lyons, acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said funding constraints are disrupting core operations including fuel for vehicles, temporary duty deployments, and contracts that support intelligence networks and victim advocacy services.

The disruption highlights ongoing impacts from the DHS appropriations lapse, which began in February when lawmakers failed to reach a deal on changes to immigration enforcement policies. CBP and ICE are largely relying on separate funding Republicans provided last year, but the money isn’t available for all of the agencies’ spending needs.

Republicans are now pursuing another reconciliation package that could deliver billions in funding for immigration enforcement outside the typical appropriations process.

Lawmakers clashed over the funding strategy, exposing tensions over the appropriations process and Republicans’ reconciliation push.

Subcommittee Chairman Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) raised concerns about advancing a reconciliation package without oversight measures, calling it “phenomenally interesting” that agencies are being urged to support funding bills with “a zero in front of your agency” while relying on a separate measure lacking accountability provisions.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the full Appropriations Committee, criticized GOP leaders for pursuing the partisan funding approach, saying it was “absurd” to hold a hearing while Republicans work to craft a separate funding measure “written in back rooms.”

Amodei also pointed to a strained relationship between lawmakers and DHS over the past year, saying he hopes coordination improves under new leadership.

He noted that newly installed Secretary Markwayne Mullin brings experience as a former member of Congress, though the same was true for former Secretary Kristi Noem.