TSA employee continues to work during shutdown, ‘soaked in debt’
Angela Grana, president of the TSA union, told USA TODAY that TSA employees feel “invisible” because they are working for free during the partial government shutdown.
President Donald Trump signed a memorandum mandating that all Department of Homeland Security employees receive pay and benefits during the partial government shutdown, which is nearing the end of its seventh week.
According to President Trump, more than 35,000 employees went without pay during this time. The list includes Transportation Security Administration employees whose absenteeism has disrupted airport operations across the country, as well as experts from the Cybersecurity Agency and employees from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“As President of the United States, I have determined that these situations constitute an emergency that threatens national security,” Trump said.
In the order, titled “Emerging the Democratic-led Department of Homeland Security Shutdown,” President Trump directed Secretary of Homeland Security Mark Wayne Mullin, in conjunction with Director of Management and Budget Russell Vought, to use “funds that are reasonably and logically tied to the functions of DHS to provide each DHS employee with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to each DHS employee in the absence of a Democratic-led shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.”
The President said that once DHS’s regular funding is restored, “every effort should be made to adjust the appropriate funding accounts within DHS so that agency operations and activities can continue in line with the funding that was planned before the expiration.”
“This cruel treatment of Department of Defense employees must end if the United States is to remain safe from national security threats and ready to respond to emergencies,” Trump said in the memo.
The current government shutdown is the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history.
On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) announced they had finalized a deal to end the government shutdown, saying they had agreed to pass a bipartisan Senate bill to fund DHS, which Republicans in both chambers have already approved (with the exception of ICE and Border Patrol, which are already funded by President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Act).
The House’s change of heart opens the door to a two-pronged plan to fund DHS through a spending bill and budget reconciliation package later this year. But progress could be hampered by the addition of Republican-backed measures like President Trump’s SAVE America Act.
