With the United States now entangled in a high-stakes conflict abroad, it’s remarkable how quickly some inside the Beltway have managed to lose sight of the bigger picture—drowning serious national security concerns in a fog of partisanship.

For the last two and a half weeks, the Department of Homeland Security has been shut down. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday to answer questions about the administration’s immigration enforcement policies, calling the ongoing shutdown “reckless” and accusing Democrats of putting party ahead of country.

The level of Democratic hypocrisy on this issue is staggering. This is the same party that champions sending government paychecks to people who aren’t working—using taxpayer dollars—yet seems unwilling to pay the Americans who actually are working, particularly those tasked with protecting the nation.

These are not symbolic jobs. These are the people responsible for defending the homeland.

And it’s a mission the American people voted for. DHS has already removed roughly three million illegal immigrants from the country, and now Democrats want to punish the department for carrying out that mandate.

The shutdown carries obvious national security implications, but the human consequences are just as troubling.

Only weeks ago, the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration told Congress that during the previous shutdown, agents were forced to sleep in their cars to save gas, sell plasma for extra cash, and pick up second jobs just to survive. Now, before they’ve even had time to recover, they’re being pushed right back into the same hardship.

Secretary Noem shared several more stories about those struggles during her testimony.

At some point, it becomes difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Democratic Party has adopted an “America Last” approach. Disaster relief funding for Americans is being delayed, apparently because some lawmakers are angry that non-American criminals are being deported back to their home countries.

But Noem’s testimony included more than personal stories. She also delivered a revelation that, if fully confirmed, should spark serious legal scrutiny for former officials in the previous administration.

According to the testimony, the last administration was so determined to accelerate the flow of illegal immigration that federal money was sent to individuals who ended up sponsoring unaccompanied minors—people who were later discovered to be involved in child trafficking.

That means taxpayer dollars may have been used to place vulnerable children into the hands of criminals.

Even giving the benefit of the doubt that officials didn’t knowingly fund traffickers, it raises an obvious question: how did basic vetting fail so badly? When government agencies are responsible for children crossing the border alone, due diligence isn’t optional.

Every elected official in that hearing room—regardless of party—should find that deeply disturbing.

What we’re seeing is selective compassion: loudly proclaiming concern for illegal immigrants while turning a blind eye to the consequences of a system so overwhelmed that children were placed with unvetted sponsors simply to move them through the pipeline.

As Secretary Noem put it, the shutdown is actively undermining national security. It handicaps the very department responsible for protecting the homeland—and it’s difficult to imagine a worse time for that to happen.

During the Biden administration, we know that at least 2,000 Iranian nationals were released into the United States after being arrested by Customs and Border Protection. How many others crossed undetected remains unknown.

How many of those individuals are still here today while Iran launches attacks on U.S. military bases and embassies abroad?

Joe Kent, director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, testified in December about the staggering number of individuals with known jihadist ties who were allowed into the United States during the previous administration.

Eighteen thousand. That’s the number authorities know about.

Kent told lawmakers that NCTC had been working around the clock with the FBI and DHS to identify and remove those individuals. But that testimony came in December—when DHS was fully funded.

Now the department is operating without funding, leaving obvious questions about how many of those individuals remain in the country, and how many others might still be unknown.

At a moment like this, the priority should be obvious: fund DHS and allow it to do its job protecting Americans during a time of war—both abroad and potentially here at home.

President Trump offered a blunt description yesterday of the mindset behind the crowds that chant “death to America.”

And there’s little doubt that some of those voices are already here.

Protesters recently gathered outside the White House openly embracing the symbolism of Islamic extremism and portraying Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, as a martyr.

If nothing else, it might serve as a logical starting point for DHS investigators looking for individuals who openly sympathize with America’s adversaries.

It’s difficult to imagine how supporting the display of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s flag outside the White House could be a winning political strategy. Yet the effort to normalize such displays continues, even as tensions rise.

Meanwhile, across the Middle East, many of Iran’s own neighbors have quietly aligned themselves with President Trump’s tougher stance toward Tehran—recognizing that confronting the regime may ultimately stabilize the region.

Internationally, America may have more allies than ever on this issue.

But the threat at home remains very real.

Within 24 hours of U.S. strikes against Iran, a man from Senegal, West Africa—Ndiaga Diagne—opened fire inside a bar in Austin, Texas, killing three people and injuring fourteen more.

Authorities say he was wearing a sweatshirt that read “Property of Allah,” with an Iranian flag visible on the shirt underneath. Investigators also discovered a history of anti-American, pro-jihadist rhetoric posted to his social media accounts, where he frequently praised the coming of an “Islamic Revolution” in the United States.

In the end, he acted on those beliefs.

And the uncomfortable question is how many others may be thinking the same way.

The ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security isn’t just another Washington standoff. It has real consequences—for the officers guarding the nation’s borders, for the agents screening passengers at airports, and for the security of the country itself.

If lawmakers want to prove that national security is more than just a campaign talking point, the first step should be obvious: end the shutdown and fund the agency responsible for protecting the homeland.

Because at a moment like this, the stakes aren’t political—they’re existential.

And that’s the straight story at daybreak.