A number of the nation’s airports are nonetheless seeing lengthy wait traces as Transportation Safety Administration officers continued to call out sick over the weekend, regardless of President Donald Trump signing a presidential memorandum ordering the Division of Homeland Safety to start issuing paychecks.
The TSA employees have been required to work with out pay for the previous 44 days attributable to an ongoing battle between Democrats and Republicans over the best way immigration enforcement has been dealt with by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Safety brokers.
Vacationers wait in line to undergo safety in Terminal 5 at John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport, March 27, 2026 in New York Metropolis.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photos
White Home Border Czar Tom Homan stated throughout an interview on CNN on Sunday that TSA officers’ paychecks will “hopefully” arrive by Monday or Tuesday.
Regardless of the promised resumption of pay, lots of the TSA officers who have not but give up proceed to name out sick, in line with DHS officers. Not less than 10.27% of all scheduled TSA employees known as out sick on Saturday, in line with DHS.
The airport with the very best variety of TSA officers calling out sick on Saturday was Bush Worldwide Airport in Houston, the place 38.3% of the officers scheduled to work did not present up, in line with the DHS. The second-highest variety of TSA officers calling out sick on Saturday was at William P. Pastime Airport in Houston, the place 36.8% of TSA officers had been no-shows, in line with DHS.
Baltimore’s Thurgood Marshall Airport, New York’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Worldwide Airport all reported that no less than 30% of TSA officers known as out sick on Saturday, in line with DHS.
Greater than 500 TSA officers have give up because the funding disaster started on Feb. 14, in line with DHS.
Trump signed a directive on Friday, instructing his newly sworn-in DHS secretary Markwayne Mullin to work with the Workplace of Administration and Funds to make use of funds “which have an inexpensive and logical nexus to TSA operations” to pay the company’s workforce.
“TSA officers ought to start seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30,” the TSA stated in an announcement on Sunday. “TSA is grateful to the President and Secretary for his or her management to place a reimbursement into the pockets of TSA staff who labored with out pay throughout the longest authorities shutdown in historical past.”
Earlier within the funding disaster, Trump deployed ICE brokers, who remained funded by appropriations from Trump’s tax and spending invoice handed final summer season, to airports to help TSA officers coping with lengthy safety traces.
Democratic Congress members questioned the president’s authority to direct the DHS to pay TSA officers, whereas additionally demanding to know why he did not implement such orders earlier if he had this authority all alongside.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, stated Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that his occasion isn’t blocking funding for the DHS after Home Republicans didn’t take up a vote final week on the Senate-passed invoice to fund many of the division.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, seems on ABC Information’ “This Week” on March 29, 2026.
ABC Information
“We’re not holding up all the cash for all of the Division of Homeland Safety,” Van Hollen advised “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “That is only a false assertion. We’ve got stated repeatedly, repeatedly, we should always fund [the Transportation Security Administration].”
Democrats blocked funding for DHS greater than a month in the past, demanding reforms to federal immigration brokers after federal brokers shot and killed U.S. residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, seems on ABC Information’ “This Week” on March 29, 2026.
ABC Information
Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise defended the Home’s place on Sunday, saying on “This Week” that some senators remorse their vote with out sharing their names.
“We truly learn their invoice, and admittedly, a lot of senators have expressed purchaser’s regret with what they did at 3 within the morning,” Scalise stated. “One of many issues that we had actual considerations with is it truly defunds over 25% of the baseline operations of the Division of Homeland Safety, 25% at a time after we’re at a heightened menace stage.”
