President Donald Trump made the move official on Friday to pay TSA officers, after the Department of Homeland Security dragged out the process and left officers working without pay for weeks amid the partial government shutdown. Americans have been impacted by longer security wait times at major airports.
The memorandum also noted that officers will receive back pay, as the shutdown has gone on since mid-February.
“As the Democrat-caused shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues well into its sixth week, America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point,” the presidential memorandum to DHS states.
“This is an unprecedented emergency situation. Currently, more than 60,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees, including approximately 50,000 transportation security officers who perform security functions at domestic airports, are not being paid due to congressional Democrats’ reckless decision to prioritize criminal illegal aliens over American citizens and shut down DHS until their demand to prohibit enforcement of Federal immigration law is met.”
The Senate voted to reopen most of DHS overnight, but the House seems poised to reject the deal as of Friday afternoon.
The Daily Wire reported earlier this week that while hundreds of officers have quit, others have resorted to extreme measures such as sleeping in their cars to save on gasoline and selling blood in order to get by financially.
“I can tell you, it’s not gonna be good,” TSA Deputy Administrator Adam Stahl said during a press conference at Reagan National Airport on Tuesday.
“The first shutdown, we saw an increase of 25% in attrition after the lapse of the first shutdown,” he added regarding the full federal government shutdown in the fall.
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