Trump Moves to Pay Unpaid Homeland Security Staff as Shutdown Drags On

President Trump said Thursday that he will sign an order to pay Department of Homeland Security employees who have worked without paychecks during a funding lapse that has become the longest of any federal department, NBC News and the Associated Press reported. Congress, meanwhile, left for a spring recess without fixing the problem.

The president announced the plan on Truth Social, saying workers’ families have “suffered far too long” and that “help is on the way,” NBC News reported. An earlier memo covered Transportation Security Administration officers, who began receiving paychecks that week; the new order is expected to reach other non-law-enforcement employees, including those at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard, the AP said. NBC News added that civilian Coast Guard, FEMA and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency workers remain unpaid, while many Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection employees are already being paid with money from Mr. Trump’s “big beautiful bill”.

The partial shutdown, which the AP counted at 48 days and NBC News described as more than 40, has strained airports. Most DHS employees kept reporting for work, but many thousands went unpaid, the AP reported, and TSA callouts led to long security lines that were easing as officers received back pay.

Republican leaders announced a two-track plan on Wednesday. Under it, the House would take up the Senate-passed bill funding all of DHS except ICE and Border Patrol, and Republicans would later use the budget reconciliation process, which requires only a simple majority, to fund those two agencies. NBC News said Senate Majority Leader John Thune took the first procedural steps Thursday. Mr. Trump wants the second bill by June 1, the AP reported. The House had not yet acted, and Speaker Mike Johnson, who earlier called the idea a “joke,” has reversed his position, according to the AP. Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he would vote no on any deal that does not fully fund CBP and ICE.

Democrats have largely opposed more ICE and CBP funding without meaningful reforms, NBC News reported. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said “Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction,” the AP reported. The president thanked Republican leaders and called the party “UNIFIED,” NBC News reported.

The use of an executive order to pay workers without an appropriation is likely to draw scrutiny. Neither outlet’s reporting addressed the order’s legal authority.

For now the dispute has two layers: a fight over immigration enforcement that has divided the parties, and a divide among Republicans over how to fund the enforcement agencies. With Congress on recess, paychecks, rather than a funding bill, are the immediate question.