DHS funding in limbo but TSA agents to be paid

White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday that TSA agents may receive overdue paychecks this week, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday to redirect other Department of Homeland Security funds to pay airport security workers. House Republicans the same day rejected a bipartisan Senate bill to fund DHS except for the agencies responsible for Trump’s mass deportation push, then approved their own stopgap funding bill and adjourned for a two-week Easter-Passover break. Some airports remained clogged by hourslong security lines over the weekend.

The Senate “appeared to have finally figured out” how to fund DHS, The Associated Press said, only for the deal to collapse “spectacularly” in an acrimonious split with House Republicans. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called the compromise worked out by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) a “joke,” then pushed through legislation that would fund all of DHS for eight weeks. House Democrats said they would have backed the Senate compromise if Johnson had allowed a vote. “This shutdown should have ended,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) told CNN over the weekend.