President Trump has had enough of the Democratic Party’s games. The Department of Homeland Security shutdown has lasted over 50 days. During much of that time, they were not paid, thanks to the antics of the Democratic Party, whose base wants them to defund ICE and dismantle DHS. We need this agency to stay operational, especially since the threat of terrorist retaliation has increased since Operation Epic Fury.
TSA agents are finally being paid under an order from Trump, with their salaries covered by funds from last year’s tax cut bill. With congressional Republicans bungling the spending measure to reopen DHS before Easter recess, Trump has issued a memo that ALL DHS employees are to be paid, citing national security concerns (via NBC News):
President Donald Trump on Friday directed the Department of Homeland Security to pay all of its employees amid a record-long shutdown at DHS that's lasted nearly 50 days.
The presidential memo authorizes paychecks for workers who have gone without pay since DHS funding stopped on Feb. 14.
"More than 35,000 employees, including Coast Guard civilians, Federal Emergency Management Agency employees helping to prepare the Nation for disaster response, and cybersecurity professionals at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, have gone without a paycheck for nearly 2 months because of congressional Democrats," Trump wrote in the memo, a day after indicating he would take action.
Trump has repeatedly blamed the partial government shutdown on Democrats, who are demanding significant changes to immigration enforcement tactics before lending their support to legislation that would fully fund DHS.
The president signed a similar memo last week that directed DHS to pay TSA workers, who had also gone without paychecks, as passengers endured significant delays at airports across the country. Those funds starting hitting employees' bank accounts this week.
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Senate Republicans passed a half-measure that would have funded DHS, except ICE and Border Patrol, before the recess. They did this at 3 am by voice vote, then left town. That was what Democrats wanted, although there was drama before this motion because Chuck Schumer signaled there might not be enough votes. They took advantage of Republicans who should have never played ball with these people. That move jammed up the House, which had to pass it that day. They didn’t, opting instead for a 60-day continuing resolution, which lacks the votes to pass the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson now say they will pass the Senate plan—funding DHS without ICE/CBP—and later fund the rest of the agency through reconciliation, which would give these two agencies funding for three years without any Democrat concessions on de-masking or judicial warrants.
Trump has stepped in to make sure these staffers get paid. ICE and CBP agents were being paid, but their civilian support staff were not.
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