LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — President Trump signed an executive order that could put paychecks in the hands of TSA workers as early as Monday, after weeks without pay during the partial government shutdown.
The move comes as the partial government shutdown drags on, with thousands of federal workers still showing up without pay.
“Seven billion dollars is sitting in an account ready,” Congresswoman Susie Lee said.
Congresswoman Susie Lee told FOX5 she thinks the president could have taken action much sooner, saying the funding has been there since the start.
“He could have done this 40 days ago. There was funding available to fund TSA agents,” Lee said.
Congress deadlocked over DHS funding
The executive order comes as Congress remains deadlocked. The Senate passed a bill early Friday morning that would fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, including TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard and the nation’s cybersecurity agency.
Then Friday night, the House passed a short-term DHS funding bill including border and immigration money that the bipartisan deal left out.
“Republicans instead want to go back to what we’ve been rehashed time and time again, which is a full funding of the Department of Homeland Security, including ICE, including Border Patrol. And that’s sort of a non-starter,” Lee said.
Lee and other Democrats say they won’t support additional funding for ICE without new guardrails, including mandatory six-month training for officers, identification, body cameras and a ban on masks.
“The American public has made it clear they do not want one more dime to go to ICE. We have seen them terrorize our streets, racially profiling people, picking people up,” Lee said.
Representatives Steven Horsford and Dina Titus both provided statements blasting House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans for prolonging the shutdown.
“They walked away from a bipartisan solution and followed President Trump over a cliff,” Rep. Horsford wrote in a statement.
“House Republicans’ political games must end. Too much is at stake,” Rep. Titus wrote in a statement.
Nevada’s only Republican member of Congress, Mark Amodei, provided FOX5 a statement, writing in part: “Make no mistake, Republicans are focused on removing the worst first, and these charades are nothing more than an attempt to shield them from the policy realities that this administration ran and won on.”
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