TSA moves to center of shutdown drama as jittery lawmakers offer warnings for economy

Republican and Democratic senators are quietly mulling ways to limit the impact of a prolonged government shutdown on air travel and, by extension, the broader U.S. economy amid a stalemate on funding the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

TSA officers are set to miss their first round of paychecks later this week, which has lawmakers in both parties bracing for rising absences at the agency and growing lines at airports around the country.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and other Republicans are now floating the idea of shifting some of the funding Congress allocated in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year for border security and immigration enforcement to airport security during the shutdown.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) says he’s open to the idea of letting the Trump administration shift money that was allocated in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to allow TSA agents to continue to get paid during an extended shutdown.

“I’m open to the idea, but I want to see a good-faith effort by the Republicans in the Senate and the administration to deal with the ICE problem,” Durbin said, referring to ICE’s aggressive tactics in Minneapolis, which have sparked a national backlash.

Democrats could be under increased pressure this week to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, even if Republicans don’t agree to their demands for ICE reform, as the military conflict in Iran could pose new domestic terrorism risks to the United States.

Law enforcement officials are investigating whether the 53-year-old man who killed two people and injured 14 at a bar in Austin, Texas, may have been motivated by the Iran strikes.

When pressed on the impact of the shutdown on homeland security during an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, argued that the administration should “stop ICE from terrorizing our communities.”

“I don’t have any obligation to fund the Department of Homeland Security that is violating the law every day, just like I don’t have any obligation to support this war that is illegal, as well,” Murphy said.

Beyond concern over the heightened risk of domestic attacks motivated by the conflict in the Middle East, some Democrats are worried about the impact of a TSA shutdown on daily business activity.

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) expressed her concerns that a reduction in TSA services will cut into air travel and reverberate throughout the economy.

“You’re going to shut down trillions of dollars, you shut down our economy by shutting down our airspace,” she warned. “In every single state, travel — not just for tourism — for business, for convention, for our goods and services” has a substantial impact on the economy.

“Every tax base in this country goes down,” she said, predicting a domino effect if people start to cut back on travel because of slowdowns at airports.

Rosen has proposed funding the TSA and other critical functions of the Homeland Security Department separately from ICE and CBP.

“What would probably be the best is to find some way to separate everything else out of Homeland. You have Coast Guard, you have TSA, you have FEMA,” she said. “TSA is not part of this.”

Rosen slammed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to shut down Global Entry and her threat to suspend TSA PreCheck, programs that allow travelers to move swiftly through customs and airport security.

She sent a letter to Noem on Thursday pressing her to reopen Global Entry and ensure that PreCheck remains open during the shutdown.

Chris Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire and president and CEO of Airlines for America, warned in an op-ed published in The Hill that America’s aviation system could be “plunged into chaos.”

More than 9,000 flights were delayed or canceled during last year’s 43-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history. During that shutdown, air traffic controllers and TSA officers were required to work without pay.

Thune says he’s open to the administration shifting some of the $190 billion in funding that was allocated to the Department of Homeland Security in last year’s budget reconciliation package to keep TSA workers paid for the duration of the partial government shutdown.

“I think anything you can do to keep people employed — government shutdowns, nobody wins,” Thune said. “If they can figure out a way to pay government employees, absolutely.”

“These are people who have jobs and have commitments and have families,” he added. “It’s going to be really unfortunate if we get to a point — and I hope we don’t — where people aren’t getting paid because the Democrats continue to insist on changes to things that just aren’t going to be feasible or tenable,” he said.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said TSA workers could miss their first paychecks this week unless negotiators reach a deal.

She said she would “fully support” any decision the Trump administration might make to shift around funding to minimize the impact of the shutdown at airports, though she argued reaching a deal to fund the entire Homeland Security Department would be the best solution.

The White House shifted funding during the 43-day full government shutdown that spanned all of October and the beginning of November to ensure that military service members didn’t miss paychecks.

White House officials haven’t yet indicated what they would do to mitigate the public impact of the Homeland Security Department, which saw its funding lapse on Feb. 14.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, said “TSA agents should be paid.”

“I’m very supportive of that. Our beef is not with TSA at all,” he said. “We have to look at the mechanism but I’m open to any suggestion to make sure that they’re getting paid.”

“We’ll see the details of what it is,” he said.

Peters said he would also be open to splitting off the funding titles for TSA and other critical Homeland Security agencies, such as the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), from ICE and Border Patrol, though Republicans have opposed splitting up the funding bill.

Democratic negotiators submitted their last offer to the White House to reform ICE and CBP in exchange for funding the Department of Homeland Security on Feb. 16. They didn’t get a counterproposal from the White House until Friday.

“So far they have not budged on the key issues like masks, like warrants, like oversight from state authorities,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters during a recent update he provided on the talks.

Lawmakers in both parties are pessimistic about reaching a deal anytime soon.

A Republican member of the Senate Appropriations Committee who requested anonymity to comment on internal discussions said the administration would have broad latitude to shift around the $190 billion allocated last year to Homeland Security from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to keep TSA workers paid during the shutdown.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said travelers will begin seeing an impact when TSA workers start missing their first paychecks this week.

“If they’re not going to get paid, they may have to do a side hustle or something else,” he warned. “I think it could become a challenge. I don’t believe it would be necessarily an orchestrated walkout but these people have lives to live. We took cash away from them for over a month ago just six months ago.”

Updated at 9:46 a.m. EST

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