DHS shutdown hits record as TSA agents prepare to receive pay

Some TSA officers told Fox News on Monday morning that they have started receiving paychecks after working without pay since DHS funding lapsed on Valentine's Day.

Speaking with TSA agents at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Fox News learned that many of them have begun seeing paychecks after President Donald Trump issued an executive order for emergency pay on Friday.

One TSA agent, however, said he didn’t see the paycheck in his account yet but believed it would be coming, noting it may be a difference in banks.

Another TSA agent said that his paycheck of $4,321 was still 30 hours short of what he has worked since the funding lapse.

Reporting by Fox News' Claudia Kelly-Bazan.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding drama will return to the Senate Monday morning after the House approved a two-month stopgap spending plan for all of DHS late Friday night.

The Senate meets today at 10:30 am in what was supposed to be a brief “pro forma” session where the body simply gavels in and gavels out with a skeleton crew on hand.

But that might not be what happens Monday. As soon as the Senate gets through the prayer a pledge, it’s possible that a Republican senator seeks recognition from the chair.

If that happens, we anticipate the GOP senator to ask unanimous consent, meaning all 100 senators would agree to take up the DHS bill passed by the House on Friday, that it be “read a third time” and passed.

The chair will then ask if there is an objection.

If any senator — be they a Democrat or Republican — objects, the House bill is dead. That means that the House and Senate continue to be out of alignment on the DHS funding question. For instance, the House didn’t even consider the bill cleared by all 100 senators and passed by the Senate at 2:19 am Friday. The House simply wrote their own two-month interim bill, passed it Friday night and skipped town.

If there is no objection, the House and Senate are aligned and will have passed the same bill. That means they are on the same page.

Approval of the House bill by the Senate would end the DHS shutdown.

But if there’s an objection, everything remains frozen.

This is both the parliamentary magic — and dark underbelly of “unanimous consent” in the Senate. You could have 99 senators in favor of something. But all it takes is a solitary objection to foil a bill under “unanimous consent” or “UC” as it’s often called in the Senate.

In fact, it’s also a possibility that Democrats could then offer their own DHS funding bill and ask the Senate to approve that by unanimous consent. It’s likely that whatever Republican senator is on duty tomorrow would object, thus blocking the Democratic request.

If the Senate blocks the House bill, it’s doubtful there’s any way to end the DHS shutdown until after both bodies return in mid-April following the Easter/Passover recess.

Republicans truly want to fund DHS. But a Democratic objection presents the GOP with a political opportunity. They can then point to that objection as the reason DHS remains shuttered, arguing that Democrats blocked the House approved bill.

Republicans believe this helps them in the midterms. They ran on border security and won in 2024. Republicans want to point to a Democratic objection as evidence that they don’t want to fund ICE.

But by the same token, Democrats could argue that Republicans are partly responsible for the shutdown and the long TSA lines if they object to the Democratic unanimous consent request.

A spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., says Senate Democrats will not accept anything other than the bill to fund most of DHS agreed to by all 100 senators early Friday morning.

It's unclear how quickly travelers will see an impact after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that instructed the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSA officers immediately.

Some major U.S. airports on Sunday were still urging travelers to arrive hours early to get through long security lines.

Houston's main airport, George Bush Intercontinental, warned Sunday evening that TSA wait times could reach four hours or longer. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport also told passengers to arrive at least four hours early for both domestic and international flights.

New York's LaGuardia Airport posted an alert Sunday evening on its website that “TSA lines are currently longer than usual.”

Baltimore-Washington International Airport said Sunday on X that “wait times have greatly subsided on this Spring Break Sunday," but it still asked passengers to show up several hours early. Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans offered the same guidance.

Tens of thousands of TSA employees have been working without pay since DHS funding lapsed on Valentine's Day. The department's shutdown reached 45 days on Monday, eclipsing the record 43-day shutdown last fall that affected all of the federal government.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.