DHS funding freeze now longest partial government shutdown in US history

The shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the fourth largest agency in the US government, became the longest partial shutdown in US history on Sunday.If the now-six-week partial shutdown continues after the weekend, it will also become the longest of any shutdown, surpassing the impasse late last year that dragged on for 43 days.With 9.4% of the total federal workforce, numbering 193,867 employees, the Department of Homeland Security has become a political football in a kick-around game with no time-keeping.Congress and Donald Trump have now made various attempts to direct government money toward the DHS, or directly to the DHS-funded Transportation Security Administration (TSA), but each have ended without success as an impasse over changes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations remains deadlocked.On Friday, more airport security workers with the TSA failed to turn up for work than on any other day of the partial government shutdown, creating more queue-misery for travelers hoping to make their flights.Airports continue to warn passengers to arrive several hours early due to unpredictable TSA wait times, with major hubs including Baltimore, Houston, and New York City seeing hours-long lines in recent days, especially in the mornings, but other major airports reporting no issues.According to DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis, more than 3,560 TSA employees, or more than 12% the agency workers called out. Bis said more that 500 officers have quit and thousands called out “because they can’t afford basic necessities like gas, child care, food, or rent”.The agency has said that more than 480 TSA workers have left the agency altogether since the start of the shutdown.Trump signed a memo late on Friday ordering DHS to restore pay to TSA employees, who have missed two paychecks, but it is unclear where that money will come from and if he can legally direct the agency to pay the employees.The presidential memorandum directed the DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, to send funds “that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations” to pay TSA employees with the pay and benefits “that would have accrued” if no shutdown had happened.Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said on Sunday that paying TSA agents was at least “a start” to ending the crisis. “I talked to Secretary Markwayne Mullin yesterday. There is a plan to get these TSA agents pay, hopefully by tomorrow, Tuesday,” Homan told CNN.He warned that paying TSA officers was only part of the problem. “There’s a lot more, many more, thousands more, tens of thousands of more DHS employees who are not being paid, that need to be paid,” he said. But Homan declined to say if ICE agents deployed to various airports to help with security would then be withdrawn. “We’ll see. You know, it depends how many TSA agents come back to work. How many TSA agents have actually quit and have no plan coming back to work? I’m working very closely with TSA administrator and the ICE director to decide what airport needs what,” he said, adding: “We’ve got to keep American people going through those lines and ICE is helping, you know, shorten those lines.”Meanwhile, lawmakers in the House rejected a Senate-passed bill to fund much of the department, including Fema and the Coast Guard, but excluding ICE and the US border patrol, opening up a fissure between Republicans in the upper and lower chambers.Speaker Mike Johnson called the Senate bill a “gambit”, adding: “I’m quite convinced that it can’t be that every Senate Republican read the language of this bill.”Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), pointed to the spring break-recess that all-but ensures no deal will be made until well into April.“I have never been more disgusted by the failure of elected leadership in my life,” Kelley said. “No check. No relief. No apology as Congress packed their bags and left these American families to struggle alone.”“Come back to Washington. Honor your oath. Do your job,” he added.Airline leaders and airport executives have made direct appeals to urge lawmakers to act on at least one of the existing bipartisan proposals. “Congress has the power to end this dysfunction once and for all, and must use any legislative vehicle to accomplish this goal,” the Modern Skies Coalition said in a joint statement this week. The president and CEO of Airlines for America, a trade group, wrote in a Washington Times op-ed this week that Congress “must get to the table immediately” and pass legislation that would prevent more scenes of frustrated passengers, overflowing airport terminals and donation drives. “Right now, lawmakers are sitting on their hands doing nothing with three viable, bipartisan bills that could prevent this mess,” wrote Chris Sununu, a former New Hampshire governor.Eric Chaffee, a Case Western Reserve law professor whose research includes risk management in the aviation industry, warned that in the current political environment a short-term deal may not pave the way for a long-term fix. “We live in a society currently where things are very polarized,” Chaffee told the Associated Press. “Whether or not any of these bills get passed, it will need to have political momentum behind it, meaning it will need to be something that the public really wants to see happen.”