President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order directing that TSA agents receive both current and back pay amid the ongoing partial government shutdown.
The move comes shortly after the GOP-led House rejected a Senate-approved measure that would have funded the entire Department of Homeland Security — excluding ICE and Border Patrol — through the end of the fiscal year.
However, questions remain about how the administration will actually deliver the payments.
According to Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, there is “still not a lot of clarity” on the mechanism behind the plan — specifically, “what mechanism it will happen through.”
“He mentions the Office of Management and Budget, obviously, but what bucket do they pull the cash from?” she said, referring to the executive order.
Highlighting a key passage from Trump’s memo, Heinrich added: “Since the shutdown began, nearly 500 transportation security officers have left their positions and thousands more have begun to call out sick at record rates due to lack of pay. As a result, security wait times at some airports have reached untenable lengths of three or more hours. The increased wait times, combined with declining morale among TSA staff, unacceptably heightened the risk of security vulnerabilities within our domestic travel system and have negatively impacted countless Americans.”
Uncertainty also remains about whether the executive order will quickly translate into actual paychecks.
“We also don’t know the level of sort of certainty that this executive order is going to bridge that gap and actually result in paychecks, or how soon that could happen,” Heinrich continued. She also noted that Trump has not yet commented on the House’s rejection of the DHS funding measure earlier in the day.
With the Senate now out of session and the House attempting to advance a stopgap solution that would send the issue back to the Senate, Heinrich suggested political pressure is mounting.
“But with the Senate now gone and the House trying to put something across the finish line that would punt this issue back to the Senate, it certainly looks like the Republican leadership is going to be under some pressure to not be the last one holding the hot potato,” she concluded.
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