WASHINGTON
President Donald Trump on Friday signed a promised executive action to pay Transportation Security Administration employees after a bid to end the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security abruptly collapsed in Congress.
Trump signed the measure with an eye toward easing long security lines at many of the nation’s busiest airports.
“America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point,” Trump said in the memo authorizing the payments. “I have determined that these circumstances constitute an emergency situation compromising the Nation’s security.”
Trump said his administration would use “funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations” for the payments. In a statement Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said TSA workers “should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday.”
While Trump’s action could help ease the plight of air travelers, it does little to resolve the broader DHS shutdown that has jammed airports and imposed financial hardship on thousands of federal workers.
The House and Senate ended the week by passing vastly different funding bills, creating a new impasse as lawmakers left Washington for a two-week recess.
The shutdown of Homeland Security will reach 44 days on Sunday, eclipsing the record 43-day shutdown last fall that affected all of the federal government.
By James Kisoo
