Trump Gets TSA Paid Starting Today As ICE Presence Hinges On One Key Factor

Agents with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) should start seeing paychecks Monday or Tuesday, but it could still be quite some time before the business of traveling by air returns to business as usual.

Border Czar Tom Homan told CNN anchor Jake Tapper on Sunday that he had spoken with newly sworn-in Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin about President Donald Trump’s order — which directed him to pay TSA agents out of preexisting funding — and that they expected agents to see their first paychecks in weeks within the coming days.

WATCH:

Border Czar Tom Homan says TSA agents can expect to be paid “tomorrow or Tuesday.” pic.twitter.com/b8XBX11sLC

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) March 29, 2026

Homan also addressed Trump’s decision to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into airports — a move made to mitigate the chaos of long lines and wait times as the lack of pay led to mass callouts among TSA employees — and said that they may remain in place for a time yet.

“We’ll see. You know, it depends how many TSA agents come back to work. How many TSA agents have actually quit and have no plan coming back to work? I’m working very closely with TSA administrator and the ICE director to decide what airport needs what,” Homan told Tapper.

The president issued an executive order on Friday directing Mullin to use funding that had “a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations” to ensure that agents received pay. They have not been paid since Democrats voted against funding the Department of Homeland Security some six weeks earlier, forcing a partial government shutdown that has also impacted the U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Coast Guard and Secret Service.

The Democrats voted to block the DHS funding bill after the deaths of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti during the ICE surge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, despite the fact that ICE agents were still being paid under provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill.

But as Fox News congressional correspondent Bill Melugin reported, it’s only the frontline ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents who are receiving paychecks amid the shutdown.

“The ICE, Border Patrol, and CBP agents we see in the field are all getting paid via OBBB. HOWEVER … their professional and civilian support staff are NOT being paid,” Melugin explained. “These are people who work the computers, the public affairs offices, and other support staff who aren’t on the front line making immigration arrests, but are supporting the agents who are. These civilian support staffers haven’t been paid for almost half of the last six months when you factor in the prior shutdown last fall.”

In an effort to get the TSA funded, the Senate passed a measure on Thursday that would break the logjam for most of DHS — with the exception of ICE and some parts of Border Patrol. But following President Trump’s lead, the House rejected the bill.

Neither the Senate bill nor a House bill that would fully fund DHS includes any of the ICE reforms demanded by Democrats, such as a ban on federal immigration agents wearing masks, and a provision requiring judicial warrants for immigration enforcement operations.