Homeland Security Secretary Warns DHS Running Out of Money to Pay Airport Workers

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will run out of funding to pay federal airport security officers in the coming weeks if no congressional deal is made, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on April 21.

President Donald Trump in late March told DHS to use its emergency funds to pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers who had gone without paychecks ​for several weeks because of a partial shutdown of the department, causing airport disruptions across the country.

Mullin said in a “Fox and Friends” interview on April 21 that funding to pay those workers would lapse in early May.

“That money is dried up if I continue down this path the first ​week of May, because my payroll at DHS is just over $1.6 billion every two weeks,” ​Mullin told the news outlet.

But after the next paycheck is sent to TSA workers, he warned, “there is no more emergency fund, so the president can’t do another executive order for us to use money, because there’s no more money there.”

Senate Republicans signaled that they would move forward this week on a budget blueprint that would boost funding for DHS agencies for ​the next three years.

Democrats have pushed for a series of new constraints on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which operate under the direction of DHS, before authorizing additional funds.

They have argued that ICE and CBP should be subject to the same operational rules as police forces across the United States, including a requirement that agents obtain judicial warrants before entering private homes. They also have said that ICE or Border Patrol agents should not be allowed to wear masks while working and should be required to use body cameras.

The proposals from Democrats, along with the DHS shutdown, came in the wake of two high-profile protester shooting deaths in Minneapolis that involved ICE and Border Patrol agents earlier this year.

Mullin told Fox News that Democrats’ gambit in Congress is “putting the homeland at risk” because it allocates fewer funding and resources to ICE, CBP, and other DHS agencies such as the TSA. Some of the congressional holdouts, he also said, should be “held accountable.”

Earlier this week, the office of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that Republicans are the ones holding up a reconciliation bill to fund DHS, accusing the GOP of seeking to “pass a partisan” bill that would fund ICE and CBP without the reforms Democrats are seeking.

Aviation trade group Airlines for America last month called on Congress to find a means to pay TSA workers or risk widespread travel disruptions.

“There aren’t many things that Americans agree on right now, but paying our federal aviation workers is the one thing that can unite us,” it said in a statement after Trump signed the order to pay TSA workers.

“Congress, do your job and stop this unnecessary disruption to travel and our economy from ever happening again.”

A former Oklahoma senator, Mullin was confirmed as the head of DHS in March after Trump announced that then-Secretary Kristi Noem would be leaving the position.

Reuters contributed to this report.