Administration directs immediate compensation for airport security personnel amid ongoing funding standoff in Congress.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on March 27 directing that Transportation Security Administration employees receive pay during the ongoing Department of Homeland Security funding lapse, as airport disruptions intensify nationwide.
The directive instructs the secretary of homeland security, working with the Office of Management and Budget, to identify available funds connected to TSA operations and use them to compensate workers who have missed paychecks during the partial shutdown.
“I hereby direct the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown,” the memorandum stated.
The Department of Homeland Security said TSA employees could begin receiving pay as early as March 30.
The move comes as the shutdown enters its sixth week, leaving tens of thousands of TSA personnel without pay. The administration said more than 60,000 employees, including approximately 50,000 frontline security officers, have been affected.
Trump described the situation as an emergency tied to mounting travel disruptions. “America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point,” he said, citing extended security lines and staffing shortages at airports across the country.
The funding standoff remains unresolved in Congress. The Senate passed a measure early Friday to fund most DHS operations but excluded immigration enforcement agencies, including Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said House Republicans would not accept the Senate proposal and instead plan to bring forward a separate 60-day funding measure.
“This Gambit that was done last night is a joke,” Johnson told reporters. “I’m quite convinced that it can’t be that every Senate Republican read the language of this bill.”
He criticized the legislation for omitting funding for key immigration enforcement agencies. “We’re not doing that,” Johnson said. “And it is unconscionable to me that the Democrats would force some sort of negotiation at 3 o’clock in the morning and try to foist this upon the American people and then get on their jets and go home for their holiday and pretend and think that we’re going to go along with that.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats would support the Senate-passed bill if it were brought to the House floor.
“If that bill is brought to the floor today, it will pass and the Trump Republican DHS shutdown will be over,” Jeffries said at a press conference. “But unfortunately, MAGA extremists in the House of Representatives continue to inflict pain on the American people.”
The executive action represents a temporary measure to address disruptions in airport security operations while lawmakers continue negotiations over broader DHS funding and immigration policy provisions.
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