NATIONAL NEWS – Trump signs executive order to pay TSA employees for the first time in weeks

By Renae Hefty

Transportation Security Administration employees will soon be receiving their first paychecks since the start of the Department of Homeland Security shutdown. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on March 27 that instructed the DHS to pay TSA officers immediately. Some employees have started seeing the two full paychecks they missed being processed, but not the partial payment they received in late February. There is no guarantee that employees will continue to be paid on a regular basis. DHS is using funding allocated to it by the “big beautiful bill.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are assisting with staff shortages currently, and no plans have been made to remove them.

The highest number of TSA agents since the start of the shutdown were called in on Friday. TSA officers will no longer be able to receive donations of gas or gift cards once they receive their backpay. Wait times at some airports went down on Sunday, but were still longer than normal. Reported wait times ranged from 20 minutes to an hour and 15 Sunday afternoon. According to the DHS, 500 of the agency’s 50,000 TSA officers have quit since the beginning of the shutdown. 61,000 employees have been working without pay, which amounts to $1 billion in missed paychecks.