Trump vows to pay DHS workers as Republicans plod towards shutdown-ending deal

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Apr 2, 2026

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President Donald Trump vowed Thursday to pay all federal Department of Homeland Security workers as congressional Republicans struggled to end the record-setting partial goverment shutdown that is set to extend through Easter weekend.

“I will soon sign an order to pay ALL of the incredible employees at the Department of Homeland Security,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “Their families have suffered far too long.”

Trump’s move, which would extend his order to pay airport screeners to other employees, came as Republican House leaders caved to a Senate plan to end the shutdown by passing a funding package that excludes President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The House took no action in a very brief ceremonial session and adjourned until Monday after Senate Majority Leader John Thune sent back its own bipartisan measure passed last week that would fund DHS agencies except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.

Republican House lawmakers were expected to hold a telephone conference call later Thursday to discuss House Speaker Mike Johnson’s dramatic flip-flop on the Senate measure, which he derided as “a joke” just a few days ago.

The most visible and painful impact of the shutdown faded this week when Trump ordered DHS to pay airport security screeners, a move that quickly ended the hours long lines at some airport checkpoints that had been getting longer by the day.

Trump will now apparently do a similar end-run around Congress to pay other DHS staff like the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, most of whom have worked without paychecks since mid-February when the shutdown started.

Democrats declared victory after the divided GOP effectively bowed to pressure and agreed to reopen the rest of DHS after nearly 50 days while they pursue a Republican-only effort to fund Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“House Republicans own the longest governement shutdown in history,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York. “Their division and dysfunction is needlessly extending the DHS shutdown and hurting federal workers.”

Thune insisted that Republicans won the fight because they didn’t agree to any reforms to the immigration crackdown that Democrats demanded.

“We didn’t cave,” he said. “They got zero of the reforms thy were advocating.”

He admitted he doesn’t know exactly when House Republicans will act.

“I don’t know the particulars around what the House will do with it,” Thune told reporters. “My assumption is, at some point, hopefully, they’ll move it.”

Republicans say they will seek to fund ICE and border patrol through a party-line spending legislation process called reconciliation that could take months to finish.

Neither outcome is guaranteed, and the strategy could potentially still face opposition from some GOP factions, especially far right-wing hardliners who may insist on including unrelated measures like Trump’s proposed voting restrictions.