Missed paycheques and airport delays: Pressure mounts on U.S. Congress to end the funding shutdown

Pressure is mounting on U.S. Congress to end the funding shutdown that’s resulted in travel disruptions, missed paychecks and even warnings of airport closures, but lawmakers have yet to resolve the underlying issue of reining in U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement operations.

Senators are expected to vote Thursday on a Republican proposal that would fund the Transportation Security Administration and much of the Department of Homeland Security, except the enforcement and removal operations conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But it’s expected to fail.

Democrats argue the GOP plan does not go far enough at putting guardrails on ICE, Customs and Border Protection and other federal officers who are engaged in the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps, particularly after the deaths of two Americans protesting the actions in Minneapolis.

With Congress set to leave town by week’s end for its own spring break recess, calls are intensifying for an end to the 41-day stalemate that’s put the livelihoods of TSA officers at risk as they provide airport security without pay.

“This is a dire situation,” the acting TSA administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill testified at a House hearing Wednesday.

She described the multiple hardships facing unpaid TSA workers — piling up bills and eviction notices, even plasma donations to make ends meet — and warned of potential airport closures if more employees refuse to come to work. Daily callout rates have increased to 11% nationwide.