Outside the Beltway

TSA Workers Paid, But DHS Funding Lapse Goes On

The longest government "shutdown" in history has no end in sight.

James Joyner · Tuesday, March 31, 2026 · 2 comments

NYT (“T.S.A. Workers Get Paid but Wonder When Next Check Will Come“):

Most of the Transportation Security Administration’s 60,000 workers began receiving back pay on Monday, easing the financial strain that has troubled them since the partial government shutdown began more than six weeks ago. But with the shutdown persisting, the workers don’t know when they’ll be paid next.

Although security lines at some airports appeared to be easing on Monday, the respite from the chaos may prove temporary if workers aren’t paid again in two weeks. A memo that President Trump signed on Friday ordering the Department of Homeland Security to pay T.S.A. officers did not specify whether they would be paid on a regular schedule. Instead, it directed the department to “provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown.”

Asked whether T.S.A. officers would be receiving future paychecks, Lauren Bis, a department spokeswoman, referred the question to the Office of Management and Budget. The agency did not respond to a request for comment.

[…]

Aaron Barker, the president of A.F.G.E. Local 554, which represents T.S.A. workers in Georgia, said T.S.A. officers were relieved to be receiving paychecks after weeks of working without pay, but the union was trying to learn more from the agency about future wages.

Mr. Barker criticized Congress for leaving Washington without a deal to fully fund the department.

“They get on a plane and walk right past those very officers that they refuse to fund,” Mr. Barker said. “We want them to get back to it. End the recess. Come back to work.”

POLITICO (“The DHS shutdown might never end“):

Washington is locked in a high-stakes game of chicken over Department of Homeland Security funding, raising the possibility that thousands of federal workers could go unpaid for several more weeks — if not longer.

The shutdown is already the longest ever experienced by any part of the federal government, and in recent days the political sparring has gone from being a mostly partisan showdown between Republicans and Democrats into a messy internal battle for the GOP.

Both the House and Senate have adjourned for two weeks, with neither chamber seriously considering returning early despite a wave of online outrage and calls from the White House to return to session. Instead, House Republicans and Senate Republicans have spent the last several days pointing fingers at each other, while Democrats dig in against funding immigration enforcement agencies without implementing guardrails the GOP has resisted.

[…]

There is no immediate hope the standoff, which has affected tens of thousands of workers since it began Feb. 14, will soon end. An administration official granted anonymity to speak candidly said that “people are thinking this will go into the summer.”

“Morale is low. The TSA getting paid while the rest of us summer is not playing well inside the building,” the official added.

Bipartisan negotiations over immigration enforcement changes have gone almost nowhere, according to several people granted anonymity to candidly describe the talks. House and Senate Republicans are in a public tug-of-war over their competing Plan Bs. And President Donald Trump is doing little to unite his party behind a consensus position — let alone pushing them to cut a deal with Democrats.

Perhaps most worrying for those eager to end the stalemate is that the strongest impetus for a deal — the hourslong security lines at some U.S. airports — is already dissipating.

[…]

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s decision to step in and fund TSA paychecks — a move privately encouraged by some Republicans — saying that the president had to do “what’s right to end this crisis that we’ve had at air travel and at airports across the country.”

But a DHS official granted anonymity to speak candidly said Trump’s decision to pay airport screeners, as well as the unanimous passage of a Senate GOP plan to fund the vast majority of the department, stripped Republicans of their main pressure point.

“Remember in the last shutdown, it was airport chaos that forced the seven Democrats to switch sides and fund the government,” the official said.

While about 50,000 airport security officers are now getting paid under Trump’s executive action, thousands more workers remain furloughed or working without pay. Those include more than 2,000 employees of the premier federal cybersecurity agency, more than 4,000 FEMA workers as well as more than 1,000 Coast Guard civilians.

DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement that the record-breaking shutdown was affecting department employees tasked with protecting Americans and visitors for the upcoming World Cup soccer tournament and America 250 anniversary celebrations,

These same workers endured a 43-day shutdown from October 1 to November 12 last fall. This smaller shutdown, which began on February 14, is at 45 days and has no end in sight. Many of them live paycheck to paycheck. Mortgage companies, grocery stores, and doctors’ offices demand payment on time.

The whole thing is positively maddening. And, yes, it’s made worse when the most public-facing employees get paid. Voters are outraged when they’re forced to endure four-hour security lines at the airport, only to miss their flight. Most have no idea that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency exists or that the Coast Guard has civilian employees.

Adding insult to injury, most of these workers are “exempt,” meaning they have to show up to work anyway. And, thanks to a war of choice that has roiled the Middle East, they’re paying sky-high prices to fill their gas tanks to boot.