President Donald Trump on March 27 signed an executive order to pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents who have not received a check since the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) entered a partial shutdown in mid-February.
“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.
TSA officers could see their paychecks as early as March 30, DHS wrote in a statement Friday.
The Epoch Times contacted the Office of Management and Budget, which is handling the payments, for additional information.
The president said “America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point” as the shutdown is now in its sixth week.
“This is an unprecedented emergency situation. Currently, more than 60,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees, including approximately 50,000 transportation security officers who perform security functions at domestic airports, are not being paid due to congressional Democrats’ reckless decision to prioritize criminal illegal aliens over American citizens and shut down DHS until their demand to prohibit enforcement of Federal immigration law is met,” Trump stated.
The move came in response to long TSA lines at airports around the country and as lawmakers struggled to reach a deal on funding for DHS.
The Senate early Friday passed a measure to fund most of DHS except for its immigration enforcement operations.
But Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that House Republicans rejected this plan, and the lower chamber will instead vote on a 60-day measure to fund DHS.
“This Gambit that was done last night is a joke,” Johnson told reporters on Friday while talking about the Senate-passed bill. “I’m quite convinced that it can’t be that every Senate Republican read the language of this bill.”
Johnson criticized authors of the bill for not allocating funds for Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the DHS.
ICE agents assist TSA officers at John F. Kennedy Airport on March 26, 2026. (This image has been digitally altered to conceal personal identification.) (The Epoch Times)
“We’re not doing that,” Johnson added. “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 (D-N.Y.) said Democrats were prepared to support the Senate bill that was passed early Friday morning.
“If that bill is brought to the floor today, it will pass and the Trump Republican DHS shutdown will be over,” Jeffries said during a press conference on Friday afternoon. “But unfortunately, MAGA extremists in the House of Representatives continue to inflict pain on the American people.”
