Lines persist at some airports after Trump signs TSA pay memo

María Paula Mijares Torres, Bloomberg News on Mar 28, 2026

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Several U.S. airports advised travelers on Saturday to arrive at least four hours before their flights because of long security lines even after President Donald Trump said Transportation Security Administration workers would be paid by tapping funds from his 2025 tax and spending bill.

The Department of Homeland Security shutdown continues with no end in sight, with Congress having left for a two-week break after failing to agree Friday on a spending measure. Airports in Atlanta and Baltimore issued the four-hour warnings while Houston warned of much longer than usual waits.

House Republicans on Friday rejected bipartisan Senate legislation to end a partial government shutdown and fund most of DHS. Instead, they held a late Friday night vote on a stopgap spending package that would have funded the department — including Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — until May 22. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has made clear that such a measure is “dead on arrival” without new policies to restrict Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Trump signed a memo Friday directing TSA personnel to be paid as he tried to alleviate disruptions at U.S. airports, but it remains unclear how much it will do to improve wait times at security checkpoints, which have varied widely at different airports.

The memo would cover back pay and paychecks going forward, according to the Office of Management and Budget, but TSA workers remained skeptical about what would be delivered.

“We’re supposed to get our back pay, only nothing continuing on,” said Jill DeJanovich, a TSA worker and the Nevada union representative, in an interview with Christina Ruffini and David Gura on "Bloomberg This Weekend." “While we are thankful and we’re grateful that we will supposedly be getting that, it’s really just a temporary Band-Aid, because we’re not going to be paid from here on out. It’s just our back pay. So essentially, we’re just resetting the clock.”

The memo doesn’t cite the specific source of funding. Federal law gives Congress the power of the purse, which means the president may lack the legal authority to unilaterally authorize pay.

Trump’s memo directed DHS and the White House budget office to use funds that have a “reasonable and logical nexus” to agency operations to provide employees who have worked without pay “with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for” the shutdown.

There’s is no sign that the Senate plans to return to Washington before the end of its two-week recess to vote on the House-passed stopgap, leaving the funding debate in a stalemate.