Partial government shutdown starts to hit TSA workers’ paychecks

By Tami Luhby, CNN

(CNN) — Transportation Security Administration workers will receive only a portion of their next paycheck, which they are set to receive as soon as Friday, according to a union official. The reduced pay comes as the partial government shutdown ends its second week with no resolution in sight.

The impasse could lead to staffing shortages and airport delays for some travelers, especially the longer TSA workers go without pay. (Air traffic controllers, however, are not affected by this partial shutdown.)

The agency is also making some changes to at least one trusted traveler program, temporarily halting the Global Entry program. Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would also suspend the popular TSA PreCheck program but then reversed that decision.

However, many DHS workers will continue to be paid, despite the shutdown. Paychecks for sworn law enforcement officers in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol and the US Secret Service, as well as for US Coast Guard military personnel, are being funded by the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” which President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, according to a senior administration official.

Other positions that work on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and border security priorities, such as technology specialists and attorneys, are also being paid through the president’s domestic policy package, the official said. The legislation provided the agency with a $165 billion infusion, which funneled $75 billion to ICE, alone, and $64 billion to CBP.

Other DHS employees throughout the agency are set to receive partial paychecks in coming days unless Congress acts. Most affected workers will only be paid for the second week of February in their next checks since the agency’s funding lapsed as of February 14.

These smaller paychecks will be the last many DHS employees receive until Congress comes to an agreement to fund the agency for part or all of the fiscal year, which ends September 30. The White House and Democrats have been negotiating reforms to the agency’s immigration enforcement operations after two US citizens were fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in January. Senate Democrats are demanding changes before they’ll support appropriating more money for DHS.

Many TSA employees are already starting to struggle financially, concerned about how they’ll afford their March housing costs and day care, among other expenses, said Johnny Jones, secretary/treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees TSA Council 100, the union representing 46,000 uniformed TSA workers.

“You’re going to see TSA officers in food bank lines in a couple of days,” he said, adding that several colleagues have taken out payday loans.

In total, about 61,000 TSA employees must remain on the job at the nation’s more than 430 commercial airports during a shutdown. Many live paycheck to paycheck, Ha Nguyen McNeill, a senior official performing the duties of TSA administrator, said in written testimony for a House subcommittee hearing before the funding lapsed.

Overall, more than 90% of DHS’ 272,000 employees will continue working during a lapse, according to the agency’s September shutdown plan covering the first five days of an impasse. More than 93% of ICE and CBP workers will remain on the job.

Only about 44,500 staffers will continue to be paid through other appropriations, according to the shutdown plan.

During last fall’s shutdown, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said that 70,000 law enforcement personnel, including in CBP, ICE and other divisions, would receive their paychecks thanks to the funding from the “big, beautiful bill.”

DHS is using funds from the package to pay nearly 58,000 CBP employees, including officers and border patrol enforcement personnel, according to an email sent this week by the National Treasury Employees Union, obtained by CNN.

Federal employees are guaranteed to receive back pay once the shutdown ends, according to a 2019 law.

This story has been update with additional details.

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