Funding for the majority of the Department of Homeland Security ran out more than nine weeks ago. On Tuesday, Senate Republicans introduced a budget resolution designed to selectively finance federal immigration enforcement while leaving the broader civilian bureaucracy paralysed and unfunded.

The $70 billion proposal aims to fund the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agencies for the next three years. To force the measure through Congress, lawmakers plan to employ budget reconciliation, a procedural mechanism that allows budget-related legislation to bypass Democratic opposition with a simple 51-vote majority.

The manoeuvre ignores demands from the opposition for guardrails on immigration enforcement operations. More critically, by carving out capital solely for kinetic border enforcement, the Senate is effectively abandoning the remaining 240,000 civil servants within the Department of Homeland Security—including transportation security and emergency management personnel—to a terminal payroll default. The legislative strategy formalises a stark reality: the state will finance its armed territorial monopolies even as its universal administrative functions collapse.