After 42 days of DHS shutdown chaos, TSA officers are now expected to begin seeing money hit their accounts as early as Monday, after President Trump stepped in with an emergency order to get airport screeners paid.
The move gives overdue relief to roughly 50,000 Transportation Security Administration employees who have been working through the shutdown without pay, even as airport lines worsened and staffing strains mounted at major hubs across the country.
Reuters reported that nearly 12% of TSA officers were absent on Thursday and that almost 500 officers had quit since mid-February, deepening the crunch during spring-break travel.
In a presidential memorandum published Friday, Trump said he had determined the situation amounted to “an emergency situation compromising the Nation’s security” and directed Homeland Security and OMB to use legally available funds tied to TSA operations to cover compensation and benefits.
The White House said the administration was acting because Congress had failed to resolve the standoff.
“Today, at the direction of President Trump and the Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, TSA has immediately begun the process of paying its workforce. TSA officers should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30,” a DHS spokesperson told The New York Post.
“TSA is grateful to the President and Secretary for their leadership to put money back into the pockets of TSA employees who worked without pay during the ongoing Democrat DHS shutdown.”
DHS said TSA workers should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30, 2026. That is the immediate win. But the larger fight is not over. Congress still has not fully resolved DHS funding, and the broader shutdown battle remains stuck in a House-Senate impasse over immigration-enforcement funding, especially for ICE and Border Patrol.
The Senate had passed a bill to fund large parts of DHS, including TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard, but House Republicans rejected it because it did not fully fund immigration enforcement. Speaker Mike Johnson then pushed for a 60-day stopgap instead, arguing the Senate package shortchanged border-security priorities.
“It is unconscionable to me that the Democrats would force some sort of negotiation at three o’clock in the morning and try to foist this upon the American people and then get on their jets and go home for their holiday — and pretend and think that we’re going to go along with that,” the speaker said.
BREAKING: President Trump has signed an executive order to pay TSA agents.
Presidential Memorandum: “As the Democrat-caused shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues well into its sixth week, America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point.… pic.twitter.com/r6iYy2qVzm
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) March 27, 2026
So for now, Trump’s emergency order gives airport workers something Washington would not: cash. But unless Congress breaks the deadlock, this DHS shutdown story won’t end anytime soon.
More over at The New York Post:
TSA workers will start seeing paychecks on Monday – thanks to Trump's order https://t.co/5dqJKwIVXr pic.twitter.com/QPesKnnJUT
— New York Post (@nypost) March 27, 2026
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