Congress Can’t Agree, So Trump Signs Order to Pay TSA Workers

Trump Signs Order to Pay TSA Workers as Congressional Funding Battle Drags Into Day 42

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed an executive action Friday to pay Transportation Security Administration employees, declaring an emergency as airport security lines stretched to breaking point across the country.
“America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point,” Trump wrote in the memo. His administration will draw on funds from last year’s tax bill to cover the paychecks, according to a senior administration official. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said workers “should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday.”

The move came after the Senate passed a bill in the early morning hours to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security — but House Republicans promptly rejected it. Speaker Mike Johnson called the Senate deal “a joke,” saying the House would instead pursue a separate measure funding the entire department through May 22. Trump signaled support for the House plan.
The sticking point is ICE and Border Patrol. Senate Democrats blocked funding for those agencies without limits on immigration enforcement practices. House conservatives want full funding — no conditions. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the House’s 60-day stopgap would be “dead on arrival in the Senate.”

The human cost is mounting. Nearly 500 TSA officers have quit during the shutdown. More than 11 percent of scheduled TSA employees missed work Wednesday alone — over 3,100 callouts — and multiple airports are seeing callout rates above 40 percent. At Houston’s Bush Intercontinental, traveler Melissa Gates waited more than two and a half hours and still hadn’t reached the security checkpoint. “I should have just driven,” she said.
The partial DHS shutdown is now in its 42nd day, with no clear resolution in sight.