US shutdown fight spills into airports as TSA funding stalls

A standoff in Washington over government funding is now hitting airports across the United States, as lawmakers fail to agree on how to restore pay for security workers.

The immediate trigger is a bill passed unanimously by the Senate early Friday, which would fund most agencies under the Department of Homeland Security, including the Transportation Security Administration, the US Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The proposal, however, excluded funding for border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, both central to President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.

By the afternoon, House Speaker Mike Johnson made clear the bill would go nowhere in the Republican-controlled chamber. He dismissed it as a “joke” and said the House would instead pursue its own version that fully funds all DHS agencies for a short-term period of two months.

That decision keeps the partial government shutdown in place, with direct consequences for airport operations. TSA agents have been working without pay since mid-February. As the shutdown drags on, some have quit or stopped reporting to work, putting visible strain on airport security and staffing.

President Donald Trump, in a separate move, signed an executive memo instructing the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate with the White House budget office to find a way to pay TSA employees. In the memo, he described the situation as an emergency, writing that the country’s air travel system has “reached its breaking point” and placing responsibility on Democrats.

The White House estimates that nearly 500 TSA agents have left their jobs since the shutdown began, a figure that underscores the pressure on an already stretched system.

Democrats, for their part, argue the crisis is being prolonged by Republican refusal to pass narrower funding measures. They support restoring funding for core security functions like airport screening, but have tied broader immigration funding to policy changes. Those include limits on racial profiling and requirements for immigration agents to clearly identify themselves while on duty.

“We’ve been clear from day one: Democrats will fund critical homeland security functions — but we will not give a blank check to Trump’s lawless and deadly immigration militia without reforms,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

The divide leaves little room for a quick resolution. Schumer has already signaled that any House bill fully funding immigration enforcement without reforms would be “dead on arrival” in the Senate.

The dispute is unfolding against a backdrop of rising public criticism of federal immigration agencies. Recent enforcement actions and raids have drawn backlash from rights groups, who accuse the administration of excessive force and civil liberties violations. The issue intensified after two US citizens were killed in separate incidents during immigration operations in Minneapolis, cases that further fueled scrutiny of enforcement tactics.