Seven Weeks. No Paycheques. 480 TSA Officers Quit. Congress Left for Vacation.

The Department of Homeland Security has been shut down since February 14. As of this week, it has been nearly seven weeks. Tens of thousands of federal employees have been working without pay or have stopped showing up entirely. More than 480 Transportation Security Administration officers have quit. At some airports, 40 to 50% of the workforce is calling out on any given day. Wait times have hit four and a half hours — the highest in TSA history. And both chambers of Congress have left Washington for a two-week recess.¹

On Wednesday, Republican leaders announced they had finally reached a deal. On Thursday, the Senate cleared the way for the House to vote on a bill that would fund most of DHS through September 30. Whether the House will act quickly remains uncertain — but the contours of the agreement mark the end of one of the most dysfunctional episodes in recent congressional history.²

The shutdown was triggered by the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti — two American citizens shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s enforcement crackdown earlier this year. Democrats refused to fund DHS without changes to immigration enforcement practices. Republicans refused to limit ICE or Border Patrol operations. The impasse held for weeks as the agencies that protect airports, coastlines, cybersecurity infrastructure, and disaster response went unfunded.³

The TSA, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, FEMA, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency all fall under DHS. None of them had anything to do with the immigration dispute. All of them paid the price.

The final week before recess was a spectacle of dysfunction. The Senate passed a bill early Friday morning that would fund all of DHS except ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection — stripping out the immigration enforcement funding that Democrats had objected to. Senate Majority Leader John Thune spent hours drafting the legislation. It passed by voice vote with no roll call.⁴

House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected it within hours. House GOP leaders said the bill was unacceptable without ICE funding and a voter ID provision. “This gambit that was done last night is a joke,” Johnson said. Multiple senior House Republican leaders told CNN they had received no warning about Thune’s plan. House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole said he didn’t even know what was in it.

By Friday evening, the House passed its own bill — a 60-day stopgap funding all of DHS at current levels through May 22. The vote was 213-203, with three Democrats crossing party lines. The Senate had already left for recess. The two bills were incompatible. The shutdown continued.⁵

CDC / Unsplash — TSA’s acting administrator told Congress that absences reached 40-50% at some airports, more than 480 officers quit, and wait times hit the highest in TSA history — over four and a half hours.

Ha Nguyen McNeill, TSA’s acting administrator, testified before the House Homeland Security Committee that the situation was becoming dangerous. She said TSA had lost more than 480 officers during the shutdown. Callout rates at some airports reached 40 to 50%. “We are being forced to consolidate lanes and may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers,” she said. “This has led to the highest wait times in TSA history, with some wait times greater than four and a half hours.”⁶

President Trump intervened by signing an executive order directing that TSA agents be paid from unspent funds in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year. The agents began receiving cheques, and airport lines appeared to ease this week. But the legal authority for the move — paying federal employees without a congressional appropriation — remains untested.

On Wednesday, Thune and Johnson issued a joint statement announcing a two-track plan. First, Congress would pass the Senate bill funding most of DHS through September — excluding ICE and parts of CBP. Second, Republicans would fund ICE separately through budget reconciliation — a procedure that requires only a simple majority and cannot be filibustered — with a June 1 deadline set by Trump.⁷

The reconciliation measure is expected to include a grab bag of Republican priorities beyond immigration: supplemental funding for the Iran war, the SAVE America Act (a voter ID and noncitizen voting bill), and potentially defence spending. Senator Lindsey Graham said he had already begun drafting the package.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the outcome a Democratic win. “Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered,” he said. “We held the line, and refused to let Republican chaos win.” Republicans characterized it as Democrats holding national security hostage over immigration politics.

The cost of the dysfunction is not abstract. TSA officers worked for weeks without pay during peak spring break travel. FEMA disaster response slowed as hurricane season approaches. Coast Guard drug interdiction operations were affected. Cybersecurity defences weakened. The Secret Service — preparing for both the World Cup and America 250 celebrations — operated under strain. Delta Airlines suspended travel perks for members of Congress, citing the shutdown.⁸

The Department of Homeland Security was shut down for nearly seven weeks because Congress could not resolve a dispute over immigration enforcement that had nothing to do with airport security, disaster response, or cybersecurity. TSA officers quit. Wait times hit four and a half hours. The Senate passed a bill. The House rejected it. The House passed a different bill. The Senate left for vacation. The president paid TSA agents by executive order of uncertain legality. Then both parties declared victory and went home. The agencies that guard airports, coastlines, and power grids were collateral damage in a political fight that neither side was willing to lose — or resolve. Seven weeks of dysfunction. Two incompatible bills. Four hundred and eighty officers gone. And a two-week recess.