EDITORIAL: Democrats walk into another shutdown dead end

Chuck Schumer walked Democrats into a dead end last year, triggering the longest federal government shutdown in a futile effort to prop up the hemorrhaging Obamacare program. Just months later, he’s at it again.

Many progressives wanted Sen. Schumer’s job last November after a handful of Democrats broke ranks 43 days in and voted with Republicans to end the budget impasse. Now the nation is 32 days into another Schumer shutdown shakedown, this one triggered by Democratic efforts to stymie immigration enforcement.

Sen. Schumer has dug in because he doesn’t want to again trigger leftist wrath and risk his political career. But his mistake wasn’t the collapse of the November impasse. It was closing down the government in the first place. Rinse and repeat. Independent voters take note.

Senate Democrats are upset with the Trump administration’s immigration policies and have repeatedly used the filibuster to block passage of an appropriations bill to fund various Department of Homeland Security agencies, including ICE and the Border Patrol. But the proposal also includes money for the TSA, the Coast Guard and FEMA. A month in to this “partial” shutdown, and the inconveniences are mounting, particularly when it comes to air travel in the spring break season.

Longer airport security waits are now the norm in some places, and many TSA agents have recently stayed home or quit over a lack of prompt pay. Airline executives blasted Congress for making the industry a “political football” in the immigration debate. “It’s past time for the government to make sure that TSA officers, U.S. Customs clearance officers at airports and air traffic controllers are paid for the job they do,” they wrote over the weekend in an open letter.

It’s also important to remember that the shutdown has done little to slow ICE, given that Republicans provided billions for the agency in a budget reconciliation bill they passed last year.

The United States is currently involved in a war with Iran. National security issues loom large. Given these realities, do Democrats truly want to hamstring various security agencies well into April or beyond simply to make a political statement?

Democrats are in the minority in both the House and the Senate because they didn’t receive enough votes in the 2024 election, in part because they alienated too many moderates with their absurd embrace of open borders. If they have a case to make regarding the White House’s immigration policies, let them make it to the American people as the midterms approach.

In the meantime, federal government workers missing paychecks or travelers slogging through backed-up airport security lines know whom to blame: Chuck Schumer and his Senate Democratic colleagues.