The estimated waits time for standard security screening was four hours at George Bush Intercontinental Airport before 6:30 a.m. on March 26, 2025. Michael Garcia/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images
Trump moves to pay TSA agents as shutdown talks stall in Congress
Emergency order would cover airport screeners who have gone without full pay since mid-February but not other DHS employees, as lawmakers remain deadlocked on funding.
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will sign an order allowing the Department of Homeland Security to pay airport security workers who have gone without a full paycheck since the shutdown began in mid-February.
The order does not appear to include pay for other federal employees working for DHS, including those at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Secret Service.
“It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it! I want to thank our hardworking TSA agents and also ICE for the incredible help they have given us at the airports,” Trump wrote on social media. “I will not allow the Radical Left Democrats to hold our country hostage any longer.”
Trump’s decision will give both chambers of Congress, which are controlled by Republicans, a bit of cover to leave for their two-week spring break without actually reaching bipartisan compromise to fund DHS. The Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are both part of DHS.
Democrats have held up the department’s funding bill in the Senate to demand new constraints on federal immigration actions after officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota in January.
Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said talks over funding the department continue with Republicans.
“There's an active negotiation going on. I hope they don't unilaterally decide to walk away. But that's their decision,” he said. “They ultimately take orders from a higher power.”
Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said “it’s just not true that we’re not in a negotiation.”
“It may be that one person or the other has lost patience and that would be too bad,” he said. “But we’re still talking.”
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Trump made the right decision to choose to pay TSA agents as the shutdown drags on.
“I just got off the phone with the president,” he said. “The president is doing absolutely the right thing. He's showing leadership.”