Trump signs executive action to pay TSA employees after Congress fails to agree on DHS funding

WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday signed a promised executive action that will pay Transportation Security Administration employees, after a deal that sought to do the same stalled in Congress.

Trump signed the action with an eye toward easing long security lines at many of the nation’s top airports.

“America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point,” Trump said in the memo authorizing the payments. He added, “I have determined that these circumstances constitute an emergency situation compromising the Nation’s security.”

Trump said his administration would use “funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations” for the payments.

In a statement Friday, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said TSA workers “should begin seeing paycheques as early as Monday.”

On Thursday night, as lawmakers grappled with the issue, a senior administration official said the money would come from the tax bill Trump signed last year. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly. They compared the move to actions Trump took during a past shutdown to pay troops.

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House Republicans reject Senate deal

Trump’s action came after House Republicans rejected a Senate-passed bill to fund most of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a revolt that risks delaying a resolution to the funding impasse now in its 42nd day that has created long lines at many of the nation’s airports.

“This gambit that was done last night is a joke,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday.

Johnson said that instead House Republicans would seek to pass a bill that would fund the entire department at current levels until May 22. He also said he had spoken with Trump about the House Republican plan and the president “supports it.”

House Republicans are angry that the bill passed early Friday by the Senate does not fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol. Democrats refused to fund those departments without changes to immigration enforcement practices.

“We’re going to do something different,” Johnson said, challenging the Senate to take up the House’s continuing resolution on Monday, assuming it does pass the House, which is uncertain.

Senators have already left town after acting in the early morning hours to end the partial shutdown, so it would take time for them to return if the House ends up passing a different measure. And Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a social media post that the 60-day stopgap measure being considered in the House would be “dead on arrival in the Senate, and Republicans know it.”

That would mean the DHS shutdown that has jammed airports and imposed financial hardship on thousands of federal workers would continue for the foreseeable future.

With pressure mounting this week to resolve the stalemate, the endgame appeared to emerge just before TSA workers were set to miss another paycheque. Trump said Thursday he would sign an order to immediately pay the TSA agents, saying he wanted to quickly stop the “Chaos at the Airports.”

A deal was subsequently reached hours later by senators.

“We can get at least a lot of the government opened up again, and then we’ll go from there,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. “Obviously, we’ll still have some work ahead of us.”

Schumer of New York said the outcome could have been reached weeks ago, and he vowed that his party would continue fighting to ensure Trump’s “rogue” immigration operation “does not get more funding without serious reform.”

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What’s in and out of the funding package

Senators worked through the night on the deal that would fund much of the rest of the department, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard and TSA. While Democrats were successful in blocking more funding for ICE and the Border Patrol, they did not get the new limits on immigration enforcement they were demanding.

Immigration enforcement has remained largely uninterrupted by the shutdown because the GOP’s big tax cuts bill that Trump signed into law last year funneled billions of dollars in extra funds to DHS, including US$75 billion for ICE operations.

Conservative Republicans have panned their own party’s proposals, demanding full funding for immigration operations. Many have vowed to ensure ICE has the resources it needs in the next budget package to carry out Trump’s agenda.

“We will fully fund ICE. That is what this fight is about,” Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said. “The border is closing. The next task is deportation.”

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On-again, off-again talks collapse

Earlier Thursday, Thune announced he had given a “last and final” offer to the Democrats. But as the day dragged on, action stalled out.

Democrats argued the GOP proposals have not gone far enough at putting guardrails on officers from ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and other federal agencies that are engaged in the immigration sweeps, particularly after the deaths of two Americans protesting the actions in Minneapolis.

They want federal agents to wear identification, remove their face masks and refrain from conducting raids around schools, churches or other sensitive places. Democrats have also pushed for an end of administrative warrants, insisting that judges sign off before agents search people’s homes or private spaces -- something new U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said he is open to considering.

Trump had largely left the issue to Congress but warned he was ready to take action, threatening to send the National Guard to airports in addition to his deployment of ICE agents, who are now checking travelers’ IDs.

The White House had floated the extraordinary move of invoking a national emergency to pay the TSA agents, a politically and legally fraught approach. Instead, Trump’s order would pay TSA agents using money from his 2025 tax bill, according to a senior administration official who wasn’t authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

If the Senate package is approved by the House and signed into law, the action Trump announced to pay TSA agents may be temporary or unneeded.

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Airport lines grow as TSA workers endure hardships

The funding shutdown has resulted in travel delays and even warnings of airport closures as TSA workers missing paychecks stop going to work. Those workers had already endured the nation’s longest government shutdown last fall.

Multiple airports are experiencing greater than 40 per cent callout rates of TSA workers, and nearly 500 of the agency’s nearly 50,000 transportation security officers have quit during the shutdown. Nationwide on Wednesday, more than 11 per cent of the TSA employees on the schedule missed work, according to DHS. That is more than 3,120 callouts.

Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the union is grateful the TSA workers will be paid but added Congress must stay in session to pass a deal “that funds DHS, pays all DHS workers, and keeps these vital agencies running.”

At George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Melissa Gates said she would not make her flight to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after waiting more than 2 1/2 hours and still not reaching the security checkpoint. She said no other flights were available until Friday.

“I should have just driven, right?” Gates said. “Five hours would have been hilarious next to this.”

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By Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick and Kevin Freking

Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti, Rebecca Santana, Collin Binkley and Ben Finley in Washington, Lekan Oyekanmi in Houston, Wyatte Grantham-Philips in New York, Rio Yamat in Las Vegas, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, and Gabriela Aoun Angueira in San Diego contributed to this report.