President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would soon sign an order to pay all employees of the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down for over 40 days.
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In a lengthy Truth Social post, Trump said that employees’ families have “suffered far too long” and that “help is on the way.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, including about the source of the funding.
Many people who work for DHS were already being paid, including employees of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which received funding through Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill.”
Amid long delays at the nation’s airports, Trump also signed an order last week to pay TSA workers, who began receiving paychecks this week. That order, however, didn’t cover thousands of other essential employees who have been forced to report for work during the shutdown without pay. The group includes civilian Coast Guard workers, Federal Emergency Management Agency workers and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency employees.
Republican congressional leaders announced a two-track plan Wednesday aimed at ending the record-breaking shutdown. Without providing explicit details, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., suggested that the House would take up the Senate-passed bill that provides funding to all of DHS except ICE and CBP. Thune took the first procedural steps toward passing that bill on Thursday.
Republicans will then separately use the “reconciliation process” to provide funding to those remaining two agencies, relying only on GOP votes at some point in the future. Democrats have largely opposed providing more funding ICE and CBP without meaningful reforms.
In his post Thursday, Trump thanked the GOP leaders and said that his party is “UNIFIED” and “and moving forward on a plan that will reload funding for our FANTASTIC Border Patrol and Immigration Enforcement Officers.”
