Transportation Security Administration workers could finally start seeing paychecks as soon as Monday after an ongoing weeks-long partial shutdown, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
“TSA is grateful to the President and Secretary for their leadership to put money back into the pockets of TSA employees who worked without pay during the ongoing Democrat DHS shutdown,” a DHS spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement.
TSA workers have missed two paychecks and American travelers have been stuck in hourslong lines at airports across the country. Hundreds of TSA workers have quit, and thousands have called out as they go without pay.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to pay Transportation Security Administration employees, as a stalemate in Congress over ending the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security hits a new stumbling block.
The executive order, signed on Friday, directs the Secretary of Homeland Security “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.” Trump’s executive order said that he has determined that “current circumstances constitute an emergency situation” that compromises the country’s security.
Meanwhile, Republican members of the House’s Freedom Caucus are signaling they won’t move forward with a proposal to fund DHS, potentially lengthening a shutdown that began on February 14.
Early Friday morning, the Senate voted to move forward with a proposal to end the partial shutdown that’s currently preventing TSA workers from getting paid. The Senate-approved proposal excludes funding for immigration operations and came as Congress prepared to depart on a scheduled recess Friday evening. For that legislation to become law — and get TSA workers paid — it needs to be passed by the House.
“Could the Senate be any more lazy than to send to us a bill that doesn’t do the job and then leave town?” Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas and member of the House Freedom Caucus, said at a press conference. “So we’re going to stand up and say no to that. We’re going to send back a bill that’s responsible to the American people.”
House Freedom Caucus members have said they want to add ICE and Border Patrol funding back into a spending package, measures that the Senate-passed package omitted. House Republicans have also eyed a 60-day stopgap funding measure, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said would be “dead on arrival in the Senate, and Republicans know it.”
This is a developing story, check back for updates.
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