US House, Senate Collide Over DHS Funding, Trump Signs Order to Fund TSA

The US House of Representatives and Senate are still struggling to come to terms on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, but US President Donald Trump has directed DHS to use backup funds to pay TSA officers.

Every fiscal year, the House and Senate of the United States must pass a new bill to fund each governmental agency, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which manages border patrol, airport security, and immigration. This year, DHS entered a shutdown after the two chambers failed to agree on a bill to fund the agency.

Amid Trump's highly contested crackdown on immigration, Democrats refused to support a bill that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. Meanwhile, Republicans argued the opposite, refusing to pass a bill that did not fund ICE.

While the rest of the government continued to receive funding, DHS did not, resulting in shutdowns of other departmental agencies, like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Border Patrol. During shutdowns, governmental workers within these agencies do not get paid– while they usually receive backpay after a funding bill is approved, many live paycheck-to-paycheck and are unable to work without pay.

Because of this, airports across the US have suffered from major staffing shortages over the last two weeks, with check-in and security wait times extending past multiple hours at some airports. Most locations advised passengers to arrive at least four hours before their flight to ensure a timely arrival to the gate, but the situation deteriorated so quickly that the White House was forced to redirect unpaid ICE officers to airports to help fill in for the lack of TSA workers.

Then, on Thursday, Senate Republicans came to terms with Democrats, allowing them to finally approve a bill that would fund the entire Department of Homeland Security except ICE and Border Patrol. While this would go against President Trump's immigration crackdown, it would move the government closer to resolving the dire situation at hand. Usually, the Senate is the more challenging chamber to pass a bill through, so many experts expected the bill to be quickly approved in the House of Representatives.

However, that did not happen. House Republicans quickly rejected the bill, criticizing their Senate counterparts for straying from Trump's agenda and being swayed by the Democratic party. Then, they passed a bill of their own, which would fund the entire department, including ICE and Border Patrol.

Now, the battle is no longer just between Democrats and Republicans. While both parties continue to blame each other for the shutdown, the disagreement has expanded to a stalemate between the House and the Senate, drawing the situation into an even larger impasse– by the US Constitution, there is no way for one of the two chambers to circumvent the other, meaning that both must agree in order for a bill to be passed.

Furthermore, both chambers have now departed for a two-week recess for an Easter break, preventing them from passing any sort of bipartisan legislation until mid-April.

After seeing the further retrogression of the bill's progress, Trump signed a directive ordering the Department of Homeland Security to fund the TSA and pay workers immediately, with paychecks scheduled to arrive as soon as March 30. It was not exactly clear where that funding would come from, but some have suggested that it may be sourced from specific funding allocated to DHS by last year's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Travelers are hoping that the move will shorten wait times at airports and smoothen the process amid the shutdown, but whether the paychecks will actually arrive on Monday are yet to be seen.

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Image credit to Bloomberg