The Department of Homeland Security announced it would use “available funds” to recall all employees as the partial government shutdown shows no end in sight.
House and Senate Republicans are out of sync, and DHS funding will not reach them.
With House and Senate Republicans operating on different wavelengths, there is no end in sight for the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.
WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security has ordered thousands of furloughed employees back to work amid the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history, even though most agencies have received no funding from Congress.
In a statement to USA TODAY, the agency said it would “utilize available funds” to recall all employees. It is unclear how many employees in total have been ordered back to work. The agency is one of the largest departments in the federal government, with more than 260,000 employees.
The return-to-work notice comes after President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on April 3 directing all DHS employees to receive pay and benefits lost during the partial government shutdown.
In the order, President Trump directed Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin to use funds that are “reasonably and logically tied to the functions of DHS and provide the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to each DHS employee in the absence of the shutdown.”
Mullin, who replaced former Secretary Kristi Noem in March, said last week that most DHS employees would soon receive paychecks.
“We expect the majority of the checks to be in banks by Friday,” he told CBS News at an event in North Carolina. “Some financial institutions may have to wait until Monday, but most people will receive their payments by then.”
But the secretary warned that future pay would be “up to Congress”.
DHS has not been fully funded for more than eight weeks. The shutdown continues as Congress remains at odds over how and under what conditions the agency will be funded.
The Senate voted in favor of a bipartisan plan that would fund much of the department, but unresolved disputes over funding for immigration enforcement and border control policies also remain. Many of the disputes escalated after two Americans were shot and killed by immigration officials in Minnesota earlier this year.
Differences have divided the House of Representatives and stalled negotiations with no clear path to ending the government shutdown. Even though Congress returned from a two-week recess on Monday, April 14, no firm date has yet been set for a House vote on reopening government agencies.
Contributor: Mark Ramirez and Lori Comstock, USA TODAY Network
(This article has been updated with comment from the Department of Homeland Security.)
