Travelers wait in long lines at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport early morning March 26, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will sign an executive order allowing the Department of Homeland Security to pay airport security guards who have not received a full paycheck since the shutdown began in mid-February.
The order for Transportation Security Administration employees apparently does not cover pay for other federal employees who work for DHS, including those at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Secret Service.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection have been largely spared from the DHS shutdown since Republicans approved tens of billions of dollars in additional funding for those two agencies in the “big, beautiful” bill last year.
“It’s not an easy thing, but I will do it! I want to thank our hard-working TSA agents and also ICE for the incredible help they have provided us at the airports,” Trump wrote on social media. “I will not allow radical left-wing Democrats to hold our country hostage any longer.”
Trump’s decision gives both chambers of Congress, controlled by Republicans, a little cover to go into their two-week spring break without actually reaching a bipartisan compromise on DHS funding.
After officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota in January, Democrats postponed the department’s funding bill in the Senate to call for up-to-date restrictions on federal immigration operations.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said shortly after Trump’s announcement that his decision “takes the immediate pressure off lawmakers to reach an agreement” but that it was a “short-term solution.”
Thune said “we’ll see” when asked whether negotiations on the DHS funding bill would continue.
“I’ll have more to say about that here soon,” he said. “But of course we will try to finance as much as possible from the DHS budget.”
Thune had not provided an update as of 10 p.m. Eastern Time as the Senators struggled to find a path forward.
Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee member Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said earlier in the evening that discussions with Republicans about funding the department were continuing.
“Active negotiations are taking place. I hope they don’t unilaterally decide to give up. But that’s their decision,” he said. “Ultimately, they are taking orders from a higher power.”
Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said around the same time, “It’s just not true that we’re not in negotiations.”
“Someone may have lost patience and that would be a shame,” he said. “But we still talk.”
Senate Majority Leader John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Trump made the right decision to pay TSA agents while the shutdown dragged on.
“I just got off the phone with the president,” he said. “The president is absolutely doing the right thing. He’s showing leadership.”
Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., ranking member of the House Budget Committee, released a statement saying the administration must explain to Congress what funds it plans to divert to pay TSA workers and why it did not take that step sooner.
“If the White House believes it has the authority to pay these workers, then it has made a conscious decision every day for the last 41 days not to pay them,” she said. “As the lines got longer and longer, as workers called, as agents quit or got second jobs, they kept choosing not to pay those workers.”
A senior administration official said the administration plans to utilize money from the Republican tax and spending package passed last summer.
Union reaction
American Federation of Government Employees national president Everett Kelley said in a statement that while the union is “grateful” that TSA employees are being paid, lawmakers must find a deal to fully fund the entire department.
“These workers and their families can’t wait,” she said. “All DHS employees must be paid immediately.
“Congress must continue to work to pass a true, bipartisan budget deal that funds DHS, pays all DHS employees and keeps these vital agencies running – even if that means canceling their upcoming furloughs.”
