President Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Thursday evening to announce that he had instructed newly appointed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to pay around 50,000 Transportation Security Officers who have worked without pay since a partial government shutdown started on February 14.
“Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true National Crisis, I am using my authorities under the Law to protect our Great Country, as I always will do,” Trump wrote in his Truth Social post.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 26, 2026
“Therefore, 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.”
Trump added: “It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it! I want to thank our hardworking TSA Agents and also, ICE, for the incredible help they have given us at the Airports.”
The outstanding wage bill from the start of the shutdown is estimated to have already exceeded $1 billion.
On Thursday, Houston Airport System, which operates both Houston George Bush Intercontinental and Houston Hobby Airports, had warned that wait times to get through TSA security checkpoints could exceed four hours due to staffing shortages.
The TSA has been forced to send backup in the form of 32 National Deployment Officers from across the country to Houston in an attempt to ease the extraordinarily long security lines after the deployment of ICE agents failed to address the crisis.
A spokesperson for Bush Intercontinental warned that TSA lines could get even worse heading into the weekend.
TSA officers have been working without pay for the past 88 days. Friday, March 27, will mark the second time that TSA officers have received a completely blank paycheck since the shutdown started.
In recent days, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had warned that the lines experienced at some major hub airports up to this point would look like “childs play” compared to what was just around the corner.
If a solution wasn’t found quickly, Duffy said some smaller airports would be forced to completely shutter so that TSA officers could be redeployed.
The Trump administration has labeled the crisis as the ‘Democrat shutdown’ over the party’s refusal to pass a full appropriations bill unless the White House agrees to major policy changes to how ICE operates.
In response, the Democratic Party has repeatedly put forward legislation to immediately fund the TSA. Republicans have unanimously voted down this legislation on every occasion it was presented to Congress.
Caught in the middle of this partisan squabble are tens of thousands of frontline TSA workers who have been calling out sick, either to take on second jobs to make ends meet or simply because they couldn’t afford to put gas in their vehicles to drive to the airport for their assigned shifts.
There have been reports of some TSA officers even selling their blood plasma to make a few extra dollars to get by. Others have been forced to sleep in their vehicles, while there are reports of workers being slapped with eviction notices because they can’t afford to pay their rent.
