Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Friday rejected a bipartisan Senate effort to end the partial government shutdown that has left many Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers working without pay.
The Senate bill, approved unanimously in an early-morning vote, would have funded most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including TSA and the US Coast Guard, while excluding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and parts of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Democrats have refused to fund ICE and portions of CBP without changes to immigration enforcement practices.
House Speaker Mike Johnson called the Senate measure a “joke” and said Republicans would draft their own legislation to fully fund TSA, ICE and CBP. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer responded that such a Republican bill would be “dead on arrival.”
With Congress deadlocked, President Donald Trump signed an executive action ordering payments to TSA employees who have been working without pay since mid-February. In a memo, Trump described the situation as an emergency that compromised national security. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said TSA workers “should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday.”
The funding standoff has caused massive airport delays and prompted community support for unpaid agents, with volunteers and citizens donating food and supplies. The dispute centers on ICE and CBP: the 42-day impasse intensified after Democrats objected to what they described as aggressive and chaotic deployments of armed federal agents—often to Democratic-run cities—by ICE and CBP. Those deployments have been linked to violent confrontations.
In January, two separate incidents involving ICE agents resulted in the deaths of two US citizens—one unarmed and another who was legally carrying a firearm—occurring amid enforcement operations and clashes with protesters and bystanders. These events helped fuel Democrats’ demands for policy changes as a condition for funding.
Before Friday, Democrats had proposed funding individual agencies to avert a prolonged funding lapse, but Trump directed Congressional Republicans to refuse such piecemeal measures. Trump has insisted on full funding only and tied consideration of other bills to passage of his proposed Save America Act, a voting-security measure that would require voters to show a passport or birth certificate to vote; Democrats have criticized the proposal as an effort to disenfranchise voters.
As political leaders traded accusations, TSA workers continued to face financial strain and airports experienced operational disruptions, while the broader funding fight kept key homeland security components in limbo. Edited by: Alex Berry, Sean Sinico, Wesley Dockery
