The Senate is hurrying to pass a set of six government funding bills before the shutdown deadline looms at the end of Friday March 8th. While there’s confidence that a shutdown won’t occur, securing unanimous agreement among all 100 senators on a voting schedule is still crucial. Once the Senate greenlights the funding bills, they’ll head to President Joe Biden for his signature, after having been approved by the House on Wednesday. Lawmakers are grappling with two impending shutdown deadlines, one on Friday March 8th and another on March 22nd.

If government agencies close for budgetary reasons, all but “essential” personnel are furloughed and are not allowed to work. Below is a brief summary of how U.S. immigration agencies have operated during prior shutdowns.

• U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS): Nearly three in four DHS employees – more than 185,000 people – would be required to continue working through a shutdown, without receiving a paycheck. Those working without pay include law enforcement officers, analysts, investigators, and disaster response officials conducting work such as border security and deportation and removal operations. DHS provided the following information regarding what would happen during a government shutdown.
• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS): USCIS is a fee-funded agency so if the government shuts down, USCIS typically continues to operate per normal with the exception of any programs that receive appropriated funds such as the E-Verify program.
• U.S. Department of State (DOS): Visa and passport operations are fee-funded and thus are not normally impacted by a shutdown. However, consular operations can be impacted if there are insufficient fees to support operations at a particular post. In this case, posts will generally only handle diplomatic visas and emergencies.
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP): CBP personnel are considered “essential.” Ports of entry will be open, and processing of passengers will continue; however, processing of applications filed at the border may be impacted.
• Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE): ICE enforcement and removal operations continue during a shutdown, although ICE attorneys generally focus on the detained docket. The ICE Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) offices are unaffected since SEVP is funded by fees.
• Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR): Immigration court cases on the detained docket will proceed during a lapse in congressional appropriations while non-detained docket cases will be reset for a later date when funding resumes.
• U.S. Department of Labor (DOL): The DOL would stop processing all applications in the event of a government shutdown, and personnel would not be available to respond to e-mail or other inquiries. Web-based systems, such as FLAG and PERM, would be inaccessible, and BALCA dockets will be placed on hold.