The ongoing partial government shutdown is about to break the record for the longest government shutdown in history. It affects only the Department of Homeland Security, which has limited the shutdown's visibility to the average American (in comparison to previous wider-scale shutdowns), but that has been changing over the past few weeks. The Transportation Security Administration is now publicly bearing the brunt of the shutdown, as T.S.A. agents at airports are increasingly deciding not to go to work (some of them can't even afford the gas to get there) or just to quit altogether. This has increased wait times at certain airports, which the media picked up on and has been featuring nightly on the news.

This increase in public pressure has actually spurred some movement in Congress, but it may not be enough to strike a deal. Congress is scheduled to scarper off on one of their multiweek vacations starting Friday, so if no deal is reached it will mean at least another two weeks of nothing getting done. What's interesting in the midst of all this is that the public doesn't even seem interested in playing "the blame game" that usually accompanies such shutdowns, as most people just lay the blame on "the politicians" without specifying a party. They show a blanket disgust at the way the political system in America just does not work, in a "pox on both your houses" sort of way.

In the past few days, we have seen both parties offer possible solutions to the shutdown, but without any actual negotiations or discussions between them. Senate Republicans hammered out a plan with the White House -- without bothering to include any Democrats. Donald Trump doesn't seem thrilled with the plan, saying: "I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. Trump seems opposed to striking any kind of deal at all which includes Democrats, showing he fundamentally doesn't understand the workings of Congress (where Democratic votes will be necessary to pass anything through the Senate).

With rather weak approval from the White House, the Senate Republicans unveiled their plan -- they would fund everything in D.H.S. except the part of ICE that is involved in Trump's mass deportation push. There would be no movement on any of the key Democratic demands that started this shutdown (reforms to ICE and other federal agencies doing immigration enforcement), but at least the T.S.A. would get funded.

Today, Democrats unveiled their own proposal, which (just like the Republican one) had not really involved any bipartisan discussions at all. The result of these competing offers was about what you would expect:

Senate talks to reopen the Department of Homeland Security deadlocked anew on Wednesday after Democrats and Republicans both balked at each other's latest offers, clashing over Democrats' demands for new restrictions on federal agents carrying out President Trump's deportation crackdown.

Democrats formally rejected a Republican offer to simply remove money for immigration enforcement from the homeland security spending bill, insisting that any deal to fund the department include meaningful changes to tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Not long after, Republicans rejected a Democratic proposal that would have added such enforcement restrictions. The back and forth left the parties almost exactly where they were more than a month ago when the department shut down with the promise of bipartisan negotiations to agree on some ICE curbs.

The two sides are essentially not talking to each other. Republicans have their own problems with the White House, since Donald Trump is completely obsessed with passing a sweeping elections bill that also has unrelated culture war issues tossed in. This is complicating things for the Senate Republicans, who are trying to somehow square this circle using budget reconciliation (which probably isn't even going to work). Their D.H.S. funding plan was to carve out the ICE enforcement funding and add that part to the elections bill, which would then (somehow) pass through a party-line vote. What all of this means is that they are essentially negotiating with themselves, and so far they haven't even come up with a plan that is acceptable enough for House and Senate Republicans to pass.

Democrats, meanwhile, haven't changed their stance. From the start they've been demanding changes to ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies, and they do not seem inclined to suddenly give up on these demands. Even with public pressure rising (with the long T.S.A. checkpoint lines), Democrats show no signs of caving, since they know that their position on ICE is one most of the public actually agrees with.

As mentioned, the two sides only have until Friday to work something out. And at this point, that doesn't seem very likely. The Senate could stay in session and (gasp!) not go on vacation next week, but the House Republicans have already said they're not interested in doing that. Perhaps a standalone bill to fund the T.S.A. might have a chance of getting enough support to quickly pass, but that would remove leverage from the larger negotiations. Meanwhile, Trump has assigned ICE agents to help out at some airports, as a sort of "slap a Band-Aid on it" approach.

At least the two sides have reached the point where they are putting actual legislative language together, which is progress of a sort. It's not much progress, but at least it shows a certain seriousness of purpose that hadn't existed before now. Further progress might happen if the Senate does cancel their vacation, since this is one of the biggest goads to getting senators from both parties to actually accomplish something (Harry Reid was a master at using the threat of lost vacation days as a political prod in the Senate).

But the basic disagreement still seems to remain. Democrats are adamant that ICE agents should not wear masks while on duty and should properly identify themselves. They are also demanding that the Fourth Amendment be fully adhered to, which would require warrants signed by judges before ICE agents entered people's homes. Republicans seem just as adamantly against these ideas.

This leaves the possibility of some sort of workaround to fund the rest of D.H.S. while still leaving the ICE portion in abeyance, but this doesn't seem very likely at this point. If there is any sort of agreement in the Senate (either by Friday, or during the next few weeks), that's about the best anyone can hope for, it seems.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant