Trump says he’ll sign order to pay TSA agents as Congress struggles to reach funding deal

Washington– President Donald Trump said Thursday he will sign an emergency order ordering the Homeland Security secretary to pay Transportation Security Administration employees immediately, as Congress struggles to reach a deal to end a budget impasse that has crowded airports and left workers without pay.

Trump announced his decision in a post on social media, saying he wanted to quickly stop the “chaos at airports.”

“It’s not an easy thing to do, but I’ll do it!” Posted by the President.

As pressure mounted, the White House floated the unusual step of invoking a national emergency to pay TSA employees while senators previewed a “last and final” offer to end a funding impasse that has clogged airports and disrupted travel.

Democrats are refusing to fund the Department of Homeland Security, as they demand changes to rein in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement operations. Trump warned during an event at the White House that he would intervene if Congress failed to act.

The Senate deadlocked, and the senators, ready to leave town for their spring break, were willing to stay out all night to reach an agreement.

“Enough is enough,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, RD, said when he announced he had made the final offer to Democrats.

Thune did not reveal details of the new framework, but said he addressed the Republican offer over the weekend, before talks with the White House and Democrats stalled.

“Hopefully… there will be some closure on this real matter soon,” Thune said.

The DHS defunding, now in its 41st day, has led to travel disruptions, missed paychecks and even warnings of airport closures. TSA workers are coming in for their second missed paycheck on Friday, with thousands refusing to show up for work.

Many airports are seeing recall rates of over 40% for TSA workers, and nearly 500 of the nearly 50,000 transportation security officers have now resigned during the shutdown. Nationwide on Wednesday, more than 11% of TSA employees on schedule missed work, according to the Department of Homeland Security. That means more than 3,120 callouts.

Trump, who has largely left the issue to Congress to resolve, has threatened to send the National Guard to airports, as well as deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who are now checking travelers’ IDs — a development that is raising concerns.

The White House is considering a menu of options, including declaring a national emergency to pay TSA employees, a move that would be politically charged and would almost certainly face legal challenges.

“They have to end this shutdown immediately or we will have to take drastic measures,” Trump said Thursday during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

At George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Melissa Gates said she would not take her flight to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after waiting more than two hours and still not arriving at the security checkpoint. She said there were no other flights available until Friday.

“I should have just been driving, right?” Gates said. “Five hours would be funny besides that.”

A “last and final” offer is on the table

Senators withdrew to discuss the latest offer privately, as a core group of more than 10 senators, both Democrats and Republicans, worked to hammer out the details.

“I think we all realize we’re not going anywhere until this is done,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia.

Democrats argue that the GOP proposals do not go far enough in placing guardrails on ICE officers and other federal agencies who participate in immigration sweeps, especially after the deaths of two Americans who were protesting the measures in Minneapolis. They want federal agents to wear identification, remove face masks and refrain from conducting raids around schools, churches or other sensitive places.

Republicans said after a private lunch meeting that there are options other than activating a national emergency.

“Maybe the president will decide that, but I don’t know,” said Sen. Susan Collins, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, who said there was funding elsewhere that could legally be used to pay the TSA and Coast Guard.

Over the weekend, talks with the White House, including with border czar Tom Homan, appeared to be making progress toward reaching an agreement, including on several provisions that Democrats had been demanding, such as ID cards and limits on raids on sensitive places.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said they need to see real changes. “We’ve been talking about ICE reforms since day one,” he said.

Any deal will almost certainly need compromise, with lawmakers revolting on both the left and right wings. Conservative Republicans criticized their own GOP proposals, demanding full funding for immigration operations, and questioned leaders’ promise that they would address Trump’s citizenship proof voting bill in a subsequent legislative package.

Trump stays out of the fray

Trump did not directly address the status of the negotiations late Wednesday evening during an annual fundraising dinner for the House Republican Campaign Committee. On Thursday, the president revived his campaign for senators to end the filibuster as a way to overcome opposition to GOP policies, something most Republican senators do not want to do.

The massive GOP tax cut bill that Trump signed into law last year transferred billions to the Department of Homeland Security, including $75 billion for ICE operations, ensuring money will flow for the immigration and deportation agenda even as funding is shut down. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other immigration officials are still getting paid.

Republicans say that the Trump administration has already made great strides to meet Democrats’ demands, especially after the swearing-in of Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullen as the new Secretary of Homeland Security to replace Kristi Noem.

Airport lines grow as TSA workers endure hardships

“This is a terrible situation,” acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeil testified at a House hearing on Wednesday.

She described the multiple hardships faced by unpaid TSA workers — backlogs of bills, eviction notices, even donations of plasma to make ends meet — and warned that airports could close if more employees refused to come to work.

“At this point, we have to consider all the options on the table,” she added.

McNeil also said TSA officers working at the nation’s airports have seen a more than 500% increase in the frequency of assaults since the shutdown began.

“This is unacceptable,” McNeil said.

___

Associated Press writers Joy Cappelletti, Mary Clare Jalonick, Rebecca Santana and Ben Finley in Washington, Lekan Oyekanmi in Houston, Wyatt Grantham Phillips in New York, Rio Yamate in Las Vegas, Ross Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, and Gabriela Aoun Anguera in San Diego contributed to this report.