Here we go again: TSA funding in peril. Yes, again.
Like so many things that fade for a while behind hourly distractions, TSA non-funding is once again about to impact you if you're traveling.
Thought that was solved, right? Wrong. Whatever slush fund Trump et al found is about gone, and this time it’s the House that isn’t budging after two Senate-approved bills. Here’s the recap:
Feb 14: Dems fund all of government except DHS, holding out for policy reforms to ICE, including accountability, uniforms and ID; banning racial profiling, requiring judicial warrants before entering private property. See the list of demands here.
That started a partial government shutdown affecting DHS only. (Keep in mind the July 2025 OBBB provided $75B in new funding for ICE over four years, bumping the ICE budget from around $10 billion to over $28B. However, FEMA, CISA, and Coast Guard were left unfunded as well as TSA in this partial shutdown.)
Mid-March: TSA employees missed their first paycheck. The average TSA salary is $50K—about $25/hour. These are not people with disposable income and lots of savings, and by then we had historic airport wait times as sick calls and resignations hit. (As of now, TSA has lost over 1,100 employees—and that’s before whatever hits this time around. Oh, and the 2027 budget will cut another 10K TSA positions to save $1.5B—undoubtedly another major morale booster for TSA employees.)
March 26: With negotiations stalled in Congress (but Congressional travel getting impacted), Trump declared an “unprecedented emergency situation," signing an order to pay TSA agents out of DHS funds while the Senate—where all this started—continued to negotiate.
April 24: Markwayne Mullin (DHS) told FOX News that DHS has used all the available emergency funds and would run out of TSA funding options in early May.
In the meantime, the sometimes-adults in the Senate passed not one but two bipartisan funding approaches as they tried to corral the House. Both fully funded DHS—first still leaving ICE out, but with a later path to do that, too, leaving room for negotiations on Dem demands, which continue to play well in polls. (And perhaps hoping Mullins will come up with enough moderation to take off the heat). The hold-up now is completely in the House, where a rapidly-losing control Mike Johnson appears unable to get his members to agree on anything. Even the WH is leaning on him in rare display of displeasure with the speaker.
So—stay tuned, particularly if you’re traveling. The only good news is that June starts FIFA World Cup travel to several U.S. host cities, with as many as 7 million visitors expected. That should finally get things moving; you would think even Johnson’s intransigents can’t fight soccer fans.