President Donald Trump announced an emergency order to pay Transportation Security Administration agents who have been working without pay for weeks while Congress fights out the details of a Department of Homeland Security funding bill.
The measure is aimed at unknotting the nation’s airport security lines that have backed up because thousands of TSA workers are either calling off work or quitting entirely.
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Trump said in a Thursday evening Truth Social post that, because Democrats have “recklessly created a true National Crisis,” he would sign an order instructing newly installed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to pay TSA agents.
DHS funding
Democrats have so far refused to sign off on legislation funding DHS unless it includes a handful of preconditions, including that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents must wear identification, remove masks and not enter private property without a warrant.
While negotiations have been ongoing between Republicans and Democrats, Congress is set to leave this weekend for a two-week recess, with no deal in sight to end the partial government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune dismissed Democrats’ latest proposal, saying it included multiple nonstarters.
TSA chaos
Like ICE, TSA workers are also funded via DHS but have been working without pay since February. The resulting thousands of agents calling off from work or quitting have left travelers stuck in hours-long lines before they can catch flights.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, LaGuardia in New York and Newark International airports all experienced lines so long that they stopped updating security wait times.
In response, Trump deployed ICE agents to select airports nationwide to assist TSA workers with job functions they could perform.
