Trump says he will sign an executive order to pay airport security personnel, but did not provide further details
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US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would take executive action to pay 50,000 airport security workers as a deal stalled in Congress to deal with a labor shortage that has caused a nationwide outage.
Trump said on social media that he is ordering the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “immediately pay our TSA Agents to deal with this Emergency, and immediately stop the Democratic Chaos at the Airports. It’s not an easy thing to do, but I’m going to do it!”
He did not say when he would sign the order or where the funding would come from.
About 500 airport security guards have been out of a job since the partial government shutdown began in February, DHS said, as a congressional dispute over department funding forces Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials to work without pay.
It’s unclear how long the funding will last or if Trump wants the DHS funding that was approved last year as part of a major tax and spending bill.
US President Donald Trump says he will send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to airports across the country after a partial government shutdown caused staff shortages and long lines.
‘Short term solution’
Senate Majority Leader John Thune called Trump’s move a “temporary solution,” but did not say how long the TSA paychecks would last.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said it is unclear how Trump plans to legally pay TSA officials.
Chris Sununu, CEO of Airlines for America, praised the solution to “pay tens of thousands of dedicated TSA officers for the important work they do,” but added that “it’s important that lawmakers come up with a permanent solution to make sure this mess doesn’t happen again.”
Democrats in Congress have held up DHS funding while demanding changes to the rules governing its immigration operations, after agents in Minneapolis shot and killed US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January.
Republicans have rejected repeated Democratic proposals to fund the TSA separately while negotiating changes to how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents operate.
Thune said he still wants to pass legislation funding “everything within DHS,” including the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other functions.
“Democrats have made it clear they don’t want to fund any law enforcement activities” of ICE, Thune said.
Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the national security panel, told reporters that until Trump’s announcement, “We made progress today …. We’ve been talking all day, trade offers all day.”
The TSA reiterated Wednesday that the agency could be forced to close smaller airports in the United States if staffing problems worsen.
More than 11 percent of TSA officers, or 3,120 agents, did not show up for work Wednesday, while the highest absenteeism rates of 30 percent or more were seen at New York’s JFK and Houston’s two airports, as well as airports in Baltimore, New Orleans and Atlanta.
The TSA is dealing with an increase in school during spring break as absenteeism is rampant, leading to hours-long delays to get through security checkpoints on some flights.
Hundreds of US immigration agents and Homeland Security Investigations officials began being deployed to 14 US airports on Monday to assist with security checks.
Some of those agents now check IDs with TSA machines, patrol entry and exit points, help with baggage handling and crowd control.
ICE and other law enforcement personnel at DHS are being paid during the shutdown.
