TSA Agents Could Get Paid as Soon as Monday Following Trump Order, DHS Says. Will It End the Airport Crisis?

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents who have been working without wages during the ongoing partial government shutdown could get paid as soon as Monday, at the order of President Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed to TIME.

“Today, at the direction of President Trump and the Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, TSA has immediately begun the process of paying its workforce,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to TIME on Friday. “TSA officers should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30.”

The spokesperson called the ongoing shutdown an “emergency” and a “crisis.”

“TSA officers are now losing their homes and cars, struggling to put food on the table, and are experiencing all-around financial catastrophe because of this extended shutdown, the 3rd they’ve experienced in just 6 months,” the spokesperson said. “Travelers are facing record breaking wait times stretching hours and hours long causing missed flights, unnecessary delays, and booking headaches."

In a presidential memorandum 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 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.

Funding for DHS, which includes TSA, lapsed on Feb. 14, amid a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over immigration enforcement. The shutdown has thrown air travel into chaos this month. TSA agents are deemed essential workers, and so are required to work during a shutdown—even without pay. 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.

While there are still some unanswered questions about the President’s order, Sheldon Jacobson, an aviation security and safety expert, says that, if TSA agents receive their paychecks on Monday, air travel could stabilize relatively soon.

“I suspect people will be showing up for work more consistently now, and these delays will come to a somewhat abrupt end,” Jacobson says. “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 adds, “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 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.”

It seemed on Friday as if Congress might be approaching a deal to fund TSA and most of DHS, after the Senate passed a bill that would do so while excluding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection from receiving funding. But later on Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected 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 it would be “dead on arrival” in the upper chamber.