Trump says he’ll sign an order to pay TSA, with Congress still deadlocked on a deal to end the shutdown

President Trump announced Thursday that he will sign an executive order instructing the Department of Homeland Security to pay Transportation Security Administration workers in hopes of bringing an end to the massive wait times that have been plaguing airports across the country.

“I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports,” he wrote on Truth Social. “It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it!”

Trump’s announcement came as negotiations in Congress on a potential deal to end the ongoing partial government shutdown appeared to stall, with no clear path to a resolution in sight.

The president didn’t provide details on the legal authority he would use to pay TSA workers, who have been working without pay since DHS’s funding lapsed more than five weeks ago. It was also unclear when that money might go out, whether his administration would cover all of the missed payroll that the TSA’s roughly 60,000 employees are owed, or how long into the future the funds would cover.

Despite Trump’s intervention, funding for the TSA — along with the rest of DHS — will only be secure in the long term once Democrats and Republicans approve legislation to end the shutdown and fund the department through the normal appropriations process.

Here’s a rundown of what’s causing the airport disruptions, where negotiations stand and how the stalemate might end.

How we got here

The root causes of the nationwide airport disruptions emerged on the streets of Minneapolis more than two months ago. After federal immigration officers shot and killed two protesters during the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration campaign in the city, Democrats in Congress insisted that they would block any bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unless it included major reforms to how agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conduct their operations. Republicans have rejected nearly all of Democrats’ demands.

Democrats stuck to their pledge and allowed DHS to run out of money on Feb. 14. As a result, the department hasn’t had the funding it needs to pay its workforce, most of whom have been required to work throughout the shutdown because their jobs are considered essential for national security. There was close to zero progress toward a deal over the first month of the shutdown. That changed last week, when thousands of TSA agents began calling out of work each day. Without enough staff to handle the rush of travelers, security checkpoints quickly became bottlenecks that caused the longest wait times in history.

After a week of mounting pressure to end the chaos, Congress took its first meaningful steps toward a solution on Monday. A proposal was put forward that would fund the TSA and every other part of DHS — except for ICE’s enforcement and removal operations. Early in the week, there was some optimism on Capitol Hill that removing the biggest point of contention from the bill might be enough to bring the two sides together.

That optimism started to erode on Wednesday after Democratic leaders said they opposed the plan because it wouldn’t satisfy their demands for serious reforms. They sent the GOP a counteroffer on Wednesday that included what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called policy changes to “rein in ICE, with commonsense guardrails.”

Sen. John Thune, the top Republican in the Senate, rejected Democrats’ offer, accusing them of “going in circles” by asking for things that have “already been turned down.” On Thursday, Thune told reporters that he had sent Democrats what he described as his party’s “last and final” proposal.

Discussions continued into Thursday evening without a breakthrough. Trump’s proposed move to pay the TSA through other means may relieve some of the time pressure that lawmakers were facing, but only Congress can officially end the shutdown.

Congress is scheduled to leave for a two-week recess on Friday. If no deal is reached by then and the recess is allowed to go on as planned, they wouldn’t be back in Washington, D.C., to consider new ways to end the shutdown until mid-April.