--- title: The TSA Says Most Agents Have Been Paid. Will It End the Airport Crisis? description: Most TSA officers received "a retroactive paycheck today that included at least two full paychecks," a DHS spokesperson said Monday. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/03/27/tsa-pay-dhs-shutdown-trump-order-airport-wait-times-lines/ author: Chantelle Lee article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-03-27T21:09:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-30T21:11:41.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: The TSA Says Most Agents Have Been Paid. Will It End the Airport Crisis? og:description: Most TSA officers received "a retroactive paycheck today that included at least two full paychecks," a DHS spokesperson said Monday. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/03/27/tsa-pay-dhs-shutdown-trump-order-airport-wait-times-lines/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt574962f3095b98f3/69c6d7f78bfca983f8bcf70f/tsa-pay-dhs-shutdown-trump-order.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: tsa-pay-dhs-shutdown-trump-order.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The TSA Says Most Agents Have Been Paid. Will It End the Airport Crisis? twitter:description: Most TSA officers received "a retroactive paycheck today that included at least two full paychecks," a DHS spokesperson said Monday. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt574962f3095b98f3/69c6d7f78bfca983f8bcf70f/tsa-pay-dhs-shutdown-trump-order.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Most TSA Agents Have Been Paid After Weeks Without Wages, Agency Confirms. Will It End the Airport Crisis? by [Chantelle Lee](https://time.com/author/chantelle-lee/) ## Chantelle Lee Reporter Updated: Mar 30, 2026 9:11 PM UTCPublished: Mar 27, 2026 9:09 PM UTC  A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent walks past travelers waiting in line at a checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 23, 2026. A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent walks past travelers waiting in line at a checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 23, 2026.Elijah Nouvelage—Bloomberg/Getty Images by [Chantelle Lee](https://time.com/author/chantelle-lee/) ## Chantelle Lee Reporter Updated: Mar 30, 2026 9:11 PM UTCPublished: Mar 27, 2026 9:09 PM UTC Most Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents who have been working without wages during the ongoing [partial government shutdown](https://time.com/article/2026/03/17/government-shutdown-tsa-democrats-congress-trump/) received a retroactive paycheck on Monday, after President Donald Trump ordered that staffers be paid, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed to TIME. “Most TSA employees received a retroactive paycheck today that included at least two full paychecks,” DHS Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Lauren Bis said in a statement to TIME on Monday. “TSA officers are grateful to President Trump and Secretary Mullin for their leadership to put money back into the pockets of TSA employees who worked without pay during the ongoing Democrat DHS shutdown. Working without pay forced more than 500 officers to leave TSA and thousands were forced to call out.” Bis said that a “small” number of TSA officers “might see a slight delay” in receiving their paychecks for “a variety of reasons, including financial institution processing times or issues with their direct deposit.” In a [presidential memorandum](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/memorandum-for-the-secretary-of-homeland-security-and-the-director-of-the-office-of-management-and-budget/) issued on Friday, Trump said that he has “determined that these circumstances constitute an emergency situation compromising the Nation’s security,” and, as a result, directed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and the Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, “to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for” the shutdown. DHS told TIME that day that TSA officers should get paid as soon as Monday, following the President’s order. To pay TSA workers, the White House's Office of Management and Budget is tapping into a $10 billion fund included in the One Big Beautiful Bill that was designated for supporting DHS's mission to safeguard borders, according to a senior administration official. Funding for DHS, which includes TSA, [lapsed on Feb. 14](https://time.com/7378601/government-shutdown-congress-ice-dhs-democrats-polls/), amid a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over immigration enforcement. The shutdown has [thrown air travel into chaos](https://time.com/article/2026/03/24/airport-wait-times-security-lines-tsa-ice-dhs-shutdown/) this month. TSA agents are deemed essential workers, and so are required to work during a shutdown—even without pay. Federal workers who go without wages during a shutdown, whether they're furloughed or continue working, are legally entitled to receive retroactive pay once the shutdown ends. But facing weeks without a paycheck, many TSA staffers have had to take on other jobs to pay their bills, and so a high number of employees have called out of work at some airports in recent weeks. As a result, airports across the country have grappled with staffing shortages among TSA officers, leading to [hours-long security lines](https://time.com/article/2026/03/25/tsa-long-lines-airports/). While it remains to be seen how the President’s order will impact security wait times at airports in the coming days, Sheldon Jacobson, an aviation security and safety expert, told TIME on Friday that he believed air travel could stabilize relatively soon after TSA agents receive their paychecks. “I suspect people will be showing up for work more consistently now, and these delays will come to a somewhat abrupt end,” Jacobson previously said. “It may take a day or two for people to recalibrate themselves for work, but for the most part, I think, certainly by Tuesday or Wednesday, we should see a certain sense of normalcy around airport checkpoints.” But, he said at the time, “Let’s see what happens on Monday.” Some experts predicted that it could take a little longer for air travel operations to return to normal. Former TSA officer Caleb Harmon-Marshall told [The Associated Press](https://apnews.com/live/tsa-government-shutdown-ice-trump-03-27-2026#0000019d-30b8-d733-afdf-fabba49b0000) that travelers “could expect possibly a week or two” of long security lines to continue. “This back and forth about all these decisions changing is confusing the TSA officers, so they’re possibly thinking like, ‘Okay, are we getting paid or are we not?” Harmon-Marshall told the news outlet. “Hopefully, with this executive order, the relief does come. I think that they just want to know how long because if it’s only for a pay period, that’s not enough to bring them back. It has to be an extended pay for them to come back or want to stay there.” Security wait times appeared to be improving on Monday at several airports. Airports that had previously suspended reporting security wait times on their websites resumed the service by Monday, including [Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport](https://www.atl.com/times/), which was reporting wait times of five minutes or less on Monday afternoon. Some airports were still grappling with lines notably longer than that to get through security—[New York’s LaGuardia Airport](https://www.laguardiaairport.com/), for instance, was reporting a wait time of more than 60 minutes at Terminal B on Monday afternoon. But that time still seemed to mark a significant decline from days earlier; on Friday, travelers at the same terminal [reportedly](https://www.fox5ny.com/news/tsa-delays-laguardia-precheck-lines) faced waits as long as two hours even in TSA Precheck lines. Airports continued to advise travelers to arrive early for their flights. “Airport security wait time reporting has been restored, but wait times are still subject to rapid change based on passenger volumes and TSA staffing,” Port Authority of New York and New Jersey—which oversees airports in the area, including LaGuardia Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport, and Newark Liberty International Airport—said in a [post on X](https://x.com/PANYNJ/status/2038655100307099776) on Monday. “We are closely monitoring lines, but posted wait times may not reflect current conditions. Please allow for significantly more time and check with your airline for the current status of your flight.” While TSA agents have begun to receive back pay following Trump's order, the DHS shutdown—now the longest government shutdown in U.S. history—still has no clear end in sight. It seemed on Friday as if Congress might be approaching a deal to fund TSA and most of DHS, after the Senate [passed](https://time.com/article/2026/03/27/senate-dhs-shutdown-deal-ice-tsa-funding-trump-republicans/) a bill that would do so while excluding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and parts of Customs and Border Protection from receiving funding. But later on Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson [rejected](https://time.com/article/2026/03/27/-a-joke-house-republicans-reject-senate-s-dhs-funding-deal/) the bill, calling it a “joke.” In the wake of that rejection, Congress’ path to approving TSA funding is unclear. House Republicans said Friday that they would put forward a short-term measure to fund the full DHS for eight weeks. But such legislation would need Democratic votes to pass the Senate, and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was quick to [say](https://x.com/SenSchumer/status/2037581253365412224) it would be “dead on arrival” in the upper chamber. Last week, Trump [deployed](https://time.com/article/2026/03/23/ice-airports-homan-duffy-trump-administration/) ICE agents to airports across the country to assist short-staffed TSA officers with airport security operations. The move sparked backlash from Democratic lawmakers and immigrant advocates. Speaking to [CNN’s State of the Union](https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/29/politics/video/white-house-border-czar-ice-agents-tsa-lines-airports-dhs-shutdown) on Sunday about if ICE agents will remain in airports after TSA officers receive their paychecks, White House border czar Tom Homan replied “We’ll see,” adding that the decision [hinges](https://time.com/article/2026/03/30/tom-homan-ice-airports-tsa-agents-pay-wait-times-lines/) on how many TSA officers return to work. In a [press release](https://www.afge.org/publication/tsa-workers-union-calls-on-congress-to-return-to-washington-and-fund-dhs/) on Monday, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) TSA Council 100, the union that represents more than 45,000 TSA officers, urged Congress to end the partial shutdown. “AFGE TSA members are grateful to receive some backpay today,” AFGE TSA Council 100 President Hydrick Thomas said in a statement. “But many of our members have seen bills pile up, interest and late fees add up, cars repossessed, and families thrown into disarray because Congress has failed to do their jobs. Over 500 of our colleagues had to quit, and those who couldn’t make it to work have disciplinary actions looming over their heads. Backpay alone does not fix those problems.” — _Brian Bennett contributed._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/03/27/tsa-pay-dhs-shutdown-trump-order-airport-wait-times-lines/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/03/27/tsa-pay-dhs-shutdown-trump-order-airport-wait-times-lines/"},"headline":"Most TSA Agents Have Been Paid After Weeks Without Wages, Agency Confirms. 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