Donald Trump has shut down the government over immigration. Meanwhile, E-Verify is down.

Businesses review the immigration status of potential hires on a federal website that currently has a red alert stripped across the top.

Due to a lapse in federal funding, this website will not be actively managed.

The alert goes on to warn that the system for checking immigration status, E-Verify, is unavailable.

For two weeks, President Donald Trump has partially shut down the government over Congress' unwillingness to set aside $5.6 billion for a wall on the southern border. The wall is needed, Trump has said, to stop migrants from crossing into the United States from Mexico.

Yet, in a bit of irony not lost among those who work closely with migrant communities, the country's immigration network has been hit hard by the shutdown. Its ramifications could be felt from court rooms to farm fields throughout Florida.

"It's oxymoronic," said Arturo Rios, a St. Petersburg immigration lawyer. "It's actually throwing gasoline on the fire and setting us back and putting burdens on a system that's already overburdened."

The shutdown has paralyzed the immigration courts, including those in Orlando and Miami, which are already dealing with a historic backlog of cases. The Washington Post reported that agents protecting the border are not being paid.

About 750,000 business signed up for E-Verify last year, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that can't currently access the federal databases to verify the status of a job applicant.

Michael Bars, a spokesman for the federal immigration agency, said officials had taken steps to "minimize the burden" of E-Verify being down.

"Fidelity to a lawful work force doesn't stop with the suspension of the E-Verify program," Bars said.

Rios is supposed to represent a client in a trial scheduled to start Monday The case has been pending for years, he said.

But the Orlando immigration court is mostly offline during the shutdown and Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyers assigned to cases there are furloughed and can't answer emails. If the trial is delayed again, it could mean another year before his client has his day in court.

Meanwhile, Florida farmers are growing increasingly anxious that the shutdown will halt the country's migrant worker program, threatening the winter harvest.

"That is a legal workforce that a lot of our farmers utilize and if they can't get them over here in a timely fashion that's going to cause a whole slew of problems," said John Walt Boatright, national affairs coordinator for the Florida Farm Bureau.

Trump has insisted that a wall is needed — a point he has fixated on since the early days of his campaign, though back then he said Mexico would pay for it. On Thursday he said the southern border is "like a sieve" that lets in criminals and contributes to drugs and human trafficking.

"We are in a shutdown because Democrats refuse to fund border security," he said.

Democrats, who assumed control of the House on Thursday, remain steadfast in their opposition to the wall and have accused Trump of holding the government hostage to appease his base.

"The President must end his temper tantrum that is causing irresponsible damage to families and our nation's security," U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa said. She added that "roughly 400 immigration judges in our immigration courts are barred from hearing cases."

Unlike past government shutdowns, some government departments, like the military, Social Security and the Department of Veterans Affairs, remain flush and operational. Because of that, fewer federal employees are programs are affected.

Still, national parks aren't staffed and environmental protection workers are furloughed.

If the shutdown continues, it is unclear if the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will be able to continue making payments to local housing authorities in Tampa and St. Petersburg.

That would leave housing authorities having to dip into their reserves, said Tampa Housing Authority Chief Operating Officer Leroy Moore.

The shutdown so far has not affected Federal Emergency Management Agency's efforts to help Panhandle residents hit by Hurricane Michael, a spokeswoman with that agency said.

Others are struggling. Gabriela Wisniewski breathed a sigh of relief on Saturday when she saw a paycheck in her bank account. She could make rent this month.

But as a federal seafood inspector in Fort Lauderdale, she may not be paid again while the government remains partially closed. So she cancelled a vacation to Washington, D.C., and warned her credit card companies she may miss her next payment.

"It just makes you feel completely out of control," said Wisniewski.

The shutdown has also affected training for the next generation of air traffic controllers. The Federal Aviation Authority paused its recruitment until Congress passes a funding bill.

"It's frustrating," said Paul Hubbard, an Ormond Beach resident who was supposed to start training to be a controller soon. "People are struggling and going into debt because of this."

Times staff writer Chris O'Donnell contributed to this report.