WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump on Friday signed a promised executive action that will pay Transportation Security Administration employees, after a deal that sought to do the same stalled in Congress.<\/p>\n
Trump signed the action with an eye toward easing long security lines<\/a> at many of the nation\u2019s top airports.<\/p>\n \u201cAmerica\u2019s air travel system has reached its breaking point,\u201d Trump said in the memo authorizing the payments. He added, \u201cI have determined that these circumstances constitute an emergency situation compromising the Nation\u2019s security.\u201d <\/p>\n Trump said his administration would use \u201cfunds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations\u201d for the payments. <\/p>\n In a statement Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said TSA workers \u201cshould begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday night, as lawmakers grappled with the issue, a senior administration official said the money would come from the tax bill Trump signed last year. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren\u2019t authorized to discuss it publicly. They compared the move to actions Trump took during a past shutdown to pay troops.<\/p>\n House Republicans reject Senate deal<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s action came after House Republicans rejected a Senate-passed bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, a revolt that risks delaying a resolution to the funding impasse now in its 42nd day that has created long lines at many of the nation\u2019s airports.<\/p>\n \u201cThis gambit that was done last night is a joke,\u201d House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday.<\/p>\n Johnson said that instead House Republicans would seek to pass a bill that would fund the entire department at until May 22. He also said he had spoken with Trump about the House Republican plan and the president supports it.<\/p>\n House Republicans are angry that the bill passed early Friday by the Senate does not fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol. Democrats refused to fund those departments without changes to immigration enforcement practices.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to do something different,\u201d Johnson said, challenging the Senate to take up the House\u2019s continuing resolution on Monday, assuming it does pass the House, which is uncertain.<\/p>\n But Senators have already left town after acting in the early morning hours to end the partial shutdown, so it would take time for them to return if the House ends up passing a different measure. And Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a social media post that the 60-day stopgap measure being considered in the House would be \u201cdead on arrival in the Senate, and Republicans know it.\u201d<\/p>\n That would mean the DHS shutdown that has jammed airports<\/a> and imposed financial hardship<\/a> on thousands of federal workers would continue for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said party members are prepared to support the Senate bill.<\/p>\n \u201cThis could end, and should end, today,\u201d Jeffries said. \u201cThere is a bipartisan bill that has been sent over from the Senate that would reopen the non-controversial parts of the Department of Homeland Security.\u201d<\/p>\n The Senate deal came together as pressure mounted to resolve the stalemate before TSA workers were set to miss another paycheck. After Trump<\/a> said Thursday he would sign an order to immediately pay the TSA agents, senators pushed ahead with more negotiations where Republicans didn\u2019t get the funding they wanted for ICE and Democrats didn\u2019t get the reforms they wanted.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can get at least a lot of the government opened up again, and then we\u2019ll go from there,\u201d said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.<\/a> \u201cObviously, we\u2019ll still have some work ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n Schumer of New York said the outcome could have been reached weeks ago, and he vowed that his party would continue fighting to ensure Trump\u2019s \u201crogue\u201d immigration operation \u201cdoes not get more funding without serious reform.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s in and out of the funding package<\/p>\n Senators worked through the night on the deal that would fund much of Homeland Security, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard and TSA. <\/p>\n Despite the shutdown, immigration enforcement has remained largely uninterrupted. That\u2019s because the GOP\u2019s big tax cuts bill<\/a> that Trump signed into law last year funneled billions of dollars in extra funds to DHS, including $75 billion for ICE operations.<\/p>\n Conservative Republicans were adamant, however, against establishing a precedent that allows Congress during the yearly appropriations process to fund some agencies within Homeland Security, but not others. They are demanding full funding for immigration operations, on top of what was provided by Trump\u2019s bill. <\/p>\n \u201cWe will fully fund ICE. That is what this fight is about,\u201d Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said. \u201cThe border is closing. The next task is deportation.\u201d<\/p>\n The shutdown began Feb. 14 and talks have dragged on for weeks. On Thursday, Thune announced he had given a \u201clast and final\u201d offer to the Democrats. <\/p>\n Democrats argued the GOP proposals did not go far enough at putting guardrails on officers from ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and other federal agencies that are engaged in the immigration sweeps, particularly after the deaths of two Americans<\/a> protesting the actions in Minneapolis. <\/p>\n They want federal agents to wear identification, remove their face masks and refrain from conducting raids around schools, churches or other sensitive places. Democrats have also pushed for an end of administrative warrants, insisting that judges sign off before agents search people\u2019s homes or private spaces \u2014 something new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin<\/a> has said he is open to considering.<\/p>\n Airport lines grow as TSA workers endure hardships<\/p>\n The DHS shutdown<\/a> has resulted in travel delays<\/a> and even warnings of airport closures<\/a> as more TSA workers missing paychecks stopped going to work. Those workers had already endured the nation\u2019s longest government shutdown last fall.<\/p>\n Multiple airports have been experiencing greater than 40% callout rates of TSA workers, and nearly 500 of the agency\u2019s nearly 50,000 transportation security officers have quit during the shutdown. Nationwide on Thursday, more than 11.8% of the TSA employees on the schedule missed work, according to DHS. That is more than 3,450 callouts.<\/p>\n ___ <\/p>\n Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana, Collin Binkley, Mary Clare Jalonick and Ben Finley in Washington, Lekan Oyekanmi in Houston, Wyatte Grantham-Philips in New York, Rio Yamat in Las Vegas, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, and Gabriela Aoun Angueira in San Diego contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump on Friday signed a promised executive action that will pay Transportation Security…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2494,112,140,7397,432,1783,1790,38,1996,7398,50,129,8,161,621,1796,617,141,9,67,7,2470,1554,165,54,365,481,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-10356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-airport-security","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-charles-schumer","11":"tag-compensation-and-benefits","12":"tag-congress","13":"tag-dc-wire","14":"tag-district-of-columbia","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-eric-schmitt","17":"tag-executive-orders","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-hakeem-jeffries","20":"tag-headlines","21":"tag-immigration","22":"tag-john-thune","23":"tag-legislation","24":"tag-markwayne-mullin","25":"tag-mike-johnson","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-politics","28":"tag-top-stories","29":"tag-transportation-security-administration","30":"tag-travel","31":"tag-u-s-department-of-homeland-security","32":"tag-u-s-news","33":"tag-u-s-republican-party","34":"tag-united-states-congress","35":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116303321005989598","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}