DHS Shutdown and Security Threats: Four Claims Examined

Why This Matters for NY-23

The DHS funding lapse affects TSA employees at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, Coast Guard operations on Lake Erie, and CISA’s cybersecurity posture for regional infrastructure. Understanding which security incidents are genuine, which are false alarms, and what is actually driving the shutdown helps NY-23 constituents evaluate whether their representative is giving them an accurate picture of the threat environment.

Statement

Source: Facebook Post, March 9, 2026

“In the last week, there has been a shooting in Austin being investigated as terrorism, bomb scares on a plane and at an airport, and yesterday in NYC, 3 IED’s found near Gracie Mansion are being linked to ISIS. Every day Senate Democrats keep our Department of Homeland Security shuttered is putting Americans at risk, and it has to stop. No one should ever use our national security as a bargaining chip, period.”

The post included a graphic headlined “The impacts of Democrats’ DHS Shutdown” featuring quotes from four DHS officials: USCIS Director Joseph Edlow, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott, CISA Acting Director Madhu Gottumukkala, and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons.

Claim 1: “A shooting in Austin being investigated as terrorism”

Rating: MOSTLY TRUE — drops a critical qualifier

On March 1, 2026, a mass shooting on West Sixth Street in Austin killed three people and injured 15 others. The shooter, 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, opened fire from his SUV and then on foot before being killed by police. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force joined the investigation based on indicators found on the suspect and in his vehicle, including clothing referencing Allah and an Iranian flag design.

What’s missing: Investigators have consistently described this as a potential terrorism nexus — not a confirmed one. FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge Alex Doran said on March 1: “Obviously it’s still way too early in the process to determine an exact motivation.” As of a March 6 FBI update, the investigation remained ongoing, with over 2,000 pieces of digital evidence collected and eight search warrants executed.

Langworthy’s post states the shooting is “being investigated as terrorism” — dropping the word “potential” that the FBI has used in every public statement. The difference between an open investigation and a confirmed classification matters, particularly when the framing is used to argue for a specific policy outcome.

Bottom line: The shooting is real, the FBI investigation is real. The missing qualifier “potential” overstates the certainty of the terrorism designation.

The DHS connection is also unexplained. Langworthy’s post places the Austin shooting at the top of a list of incidents he uses to argue that Democrats are putting Americans at risk by keeping DHS without funding. But the FBI — which leads domestic terrorism investigations through the Joint Terrorism Task Force — operates under the Department of Justice, not DHS. The DHS funding lapse has no direct bearing on the FBI’s investigation. The DHS component most involved in terrorism investigations is HSI (Homeland Security Investigations), which is under ICE — an agency that continued operating with funding from the 2025 reconciliation bill. There is no reporting connecting the Austin investigation to the DHS funding lapse, and structurally, the agencies affected by that lapse (TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, CISA) are not responsible for domestic terrorism investigations. The implied causal link — DHS shutdown → Austin shooting investigation suffers — is not established.

Claim 2: “Bomb scares on a plane and at an airport”

Rating: TRUE but creates a false pattern

Multiple bomb scares did occur in early March 2026:

• March 1 — Fort Lauderdale: A 76-year-old man was arrested at FLL after making a bomb threat on a JetBlue flight to JFK — reportedly because he couldn’t find overhead bin space. No bomb was found.
• March 4 — Newark: U.S. and Canadian military aircraft were scrambled for Scandinavian Airlines Flight 907. NORAD confirmed the threat was unfounded; the plane landed without incident.
• March 7 — Atlanta: Southwest Airlines Flight 2094 was diverted after a reported security matter. SWAT teams boarded the aircraft, detained a passenger who was then interviewed and released. The FBI concluded there was no credible threat and no charges were filed. (See also: Southwest Flight 2094)
• March 8 — Kansas City: A bomb threat at Kansas City International Airport prompted evacuations. FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the threat was not credible.

None of these incidents were connected to terrorism, extremism, or the DHS shutdown. The Fort Lauderdale incident was a disgruntled passenger upset about carry-on space. The others were false alarms cleared by law enforcement. By listing them alongside the Austin shooting and the Gracie Mansion IEDs, Langworthy creates an implied narrative of escalating, connected security threats — when these were unrelated incidents with no terrorism nexus.

Claim 3: “3 IEDs found near Gracie Mansion are being linked to ISIS”

Rating: PARTIALLY ACCURATE — the number is wrong, key context omitted

On March 8, 2026, two improvised explosive devices were confirmed at protests near Gracie Mansion in Manhattan. A third device, found in a vehicle on East End Avenue, tested negative for explosive materials. Langworthy says “3 IEDs” — the confirmed count is two, not three.

The ISIS connection is real: NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed the incident is being investigated as “an act of ISIS-inspired terrorism.” Two suspects — 18-year-old Emir Balat and 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi, both from Pennsylvania — were charged in a five-count federal complaint including attempted provision of material support to ISIS and use of a weapon of mass destruction. Both allegedly told investigators they were inspired by ISIS. Balat allegedly stated he wanted to carry out an attack bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing.

What Langworthy omits:

1. The IED count is wrong. Two confirmed IEDs, not three.
2. No connection to Iran. NYPD Commissioner Tisch specifically said there is “nothing to connect the IEDs to the war in Iran” — which matters because Langworthy’s post implies all these incidents are consequences of the same threat environment, and the U.S. is in an active conflict with Iran.
3. The protest context. The IEDs were thrown during a confrontation between a far-right anti-Muslim protest and counterprotesters. This context complicates the clean partisan framing of the post.

Claim 4: “Every day Senate Democrats keep our Department of Homeland Security shuttered is putting Americans at risk”

Rating: ONE-SIDED — omits the cause and overstates the impact

It is true that:

• DHS has been in a partial funding lapse since February 14, 2026 — now entering its fourth week
• Senate Democrats have blocked DHS funding bills three times, with votes failing to reach the 60-vote cloture threshold
• The House passed H.R. 7744 on March 5 (221–209)
• A Senate vote on March 9 was widely expected to fail again

What Langworthy’s framing omits:

Why Democrats are blocking funding: Senate Democrats have demanded specific accountability reforms in response to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis — Renée Good (shot by ICE on January 7) and Alex Pretti, a VA nurse (shot by CBP on January 24). Democratic demands include requiring agents to wear body cameras, barring agents from wearing masks during operations, and requiring judicial warrants for arrests. These demands are not in the current House DHS bill.

“Shuttered” overstates the operational reality. ICE, CBP, and USCIS — DHS’s largest enforcement agencies — receive approximately 60% of their funding from mandatory appropriations, fees, and the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), not annual appropriations. As House Appropriations Committee Republicans themselves acknowledged, ICE and CBP “have ample funding from the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act…and their operations will continue largely uninterrupted.”

The agencies most impacted by the lapse are TSA (screeners facing missed pay), the Coast Guard (essential missions but withheld pay), FEMA (reduced non-disaster operations), CISA (only ~900 of ~2,200 employees retained), and the Secret Service. These are real costs with real impacts on real workers — but the framing that DHS is “shuttered” overstates the enforcement disruption.

“National security as a bargaining chip” — Langworthy’s framing ignores that both parties have used shutdown leverage. Senate Democrats allowed the entire federal government to shut down for 43 days in the first shutdown of FY2026. Republicans have historically used shutdown threats over debt ceilings and spending levels. The tactic is bipartisan; the current instance has specific cause (two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents).

The Attached Graphic

The graphic headlined “The impacts of Democrats’ DHS Shutdown” features quotes from four DHS officials warning about operational impacts. These are real officials making real statements about real concerns:

• USCIS Director Joseph Edlow: “While we may be there, able to continue…Without our partners being paid, and with them being furloughed, it’s going to make America significantly less safe.”
• CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott: “The rhetoric and the back and forth, the politicizing of law enforcement in general, detracts from the general morale of our personnel… I would agree that America becomes less safe.”
• CISA Acting Director Madhu Gottumukkala: “When the government shuts down, cyber threats do not.”
• ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons: “It will have a great impact, especially on the Homeland Security Task Forces and the men and women that are focused on transnational crime and foreign terrorist organizations.”

These quotes are legitimate presentations of official testimony. The graphic’s headline — “The impacts of Democrats’ DHS Shutdown” — is partisan framing that assigns sole blame to Democrats in what is a two-party dispute with specific documented causes.

Summary

The overall rhetorical strategy: Chain together loosely related security incidents — some genuinely alarming (Gracie Mansion), some routine false alarms (the bomb scares) — and assign collective blame to a single political cause. The individual events are real; the implied pattern of connected, DHS-shutdown-enabled threats is not supported by the evidence.

Related Fact-Checks

• Southwest Flight 2094 — Deeper look at the false alarm Langworthy cited the day before
• Mullin DHS Appointment — Earlier DHS shutdown framing the same week
• DHS Shutdown: Epic Fury — Full analysis of DHS shutdown claims from Feb 28
• Minneapolis Shooting: Renee Good — The killing behind Democratic demands

Sources

• FBI San Antonio Division updates, March 1 and March 6, 2026 (Austin shooting)
• CNN, ABC News, KUT Radio (Austin shooting coverage, March 2026)
• FBI Atlanta field office statement, March 8, 2026 (SW Flight 2094)
• Broward Sheriff’s Office via Local10 (Fort Lauderdale, March 1, 2026)
• Bloomberg (Newark/SAS Flight 907, March 4, 2026)
• Missourinet (Kansas City, March 9, 2026)
• CBS News New York, Gothamist, ABC7 New York (Gracie Mansion IEDs, March 9, 2026)
• NYPD Commissioner Tisch statement, March 9, 2026
• CBS News, CNBC, The Hill (DHS shutdown, February–March 2026)
• House Appropriations Committee press releases, February 13 and March 4, 2026
• Wikipedia, “2026 United States federal government shutdowns”
• Senate Majority Leader Thune floor remarks, March 2026

Note: This entry documents publicly available information from law enforcement statements, news organizations, and official records. Readers may draw their own conclusions.

Last updated: March 10, 2026