WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he planned to issue an executive order declaring a national emergency to compel the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSA agents amid a six-week shutdown of DHS that has caused long lines at airport security checkpoints.
“It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform TruthSocial. “I want to thank our hardworking TSA Agents and also, ICE, for the incredible help they have given us at the Airports. I will not allow the Radical Left Democrats to hold our Country hostage any longer.”
The Senate had been negotiating all week to pass legislation funding DHS, which has been shuttered since Feb. 14, along with some reforms to ICE, as Democrats had demanded following the death of two Americans by federal immigration agents earlier this year. Those talks stalled on Thursday, prompting Trump to intervene after appeals from Senate Republicans.
Democrats had for weeks sought to pay TSA agents while negotiations continued over broader DHS funding and reforms to ICE, but those bills were repeatedly blocked by GOP senators.
Earlier on Thursday, as the situation at airports worsened, Sen. John Kennedy (R-Ky.) announced he was drafting legislation to pay TSA workers, essentially breaking with his Republican colleagues, who had repeatedly blocked similar bills offered by Democrats.
