DHS warns it will run out of money to pay airport security workers in coming weeks
Reuters and Tami Luhby
(Reuters) — Long security lines may reappear at airports next month after the Department of Homeland Security secretary warned Tuesday that the agency doesn’t have the funds to pay staffers after this month.
The agency has been shutdown since mid-February, and the resulting lapse in paychecks prompted many Transportation Security Administration officers to call out, causing major disruptions at multiple US airports for several weeks. President Donald Trump late last month directed DHS to use funds from the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act to pay the TSA officers and other agency staffers.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday that the money would run out by early May.
“That money is dried up if I continue down this path the first week of May, because my payroll at DHS is just over $1.6 billion every two weeks,” Mullin said. After the next paycheck, which is scheduled for the end of this week, “there is no more emergency fund, so the president can’t do another executive order for us to use money, because there’s no more money there.”
The agency is drawing on a $10 billion fund created last year by the Republicans’ sweeping domestic agenda package. It has a little less than $1.4 billion remaining, as of April 19, according to Office of Management and Budget data.
Other DHS employees received their back pay earlier this month. But it’s unclear whether they will be paid this week since they received a memo in early April indicating they should not submit time cards for this coming paycheck until they receive further guidance.
DHS did not answer CNN’s request for more information about whether staffers will be paid.
TSA workers also went unpaid for six weeks last fall during an earlier government shutdown.
In March, the weeks-long standoff in Congress caused security lines at some airports to exceed four hours, the longest in the TSA’s nearly 25-year history.
The missed paychecks caused serious financial woes for many TSA officers, who had trouble affording their housing, food, gas, child care and other expenses. More than 838 TSA officers have quit since mid-February, according to TSA.
Democrats have pushed for a series of new constraints on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, which operate under the direction of DHS, before authorizing additional funds. They have argued that ICE and Border Patrol should be subject to the same operational rules as police forces across the United States, including a requirement that agents obtain judicial warrants before they enter private homes.
The head of the union representing many DHS workers urged the House to approve the bill to fund the agency.
“Failure to pass this bipartisan compromise before Friday, April 24 guarantees that Transportation Security Officers, civilian Coast Guard employees, and FEMA professionals will go unpaid unless the administration steps in, as it did last month,” Everett Kelley, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, wrote in a letter to House lawmakers on Tuesday.
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