The Department of Homeland Security has issued a direct warning to Congress: the emergency funds keeping roughly 50,000 Transportation Security Administration workers on payroll will run out in early May, setting up a potential return to the airport security disruptions that gripped the country earlier this year. The disclosure comes as the partial government shutdown of DHS, which began February 14, 2026, continues with no clear resolution in sight.
How the Emergency Fund Came to Exist
DHS has been drawing from funds made available through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to cover employee pay during the shutdown. In late March, President Donald Trump directed the department to use those emergency funds specifically to compensate TSA workers who had gone without paychecks for roughly six weeks.
The directive came as airport security lines at major hubs across the country stretched beyond four hours — the longest wait times in TSA’s nearly 25-year history. The emergency payment was intended to stabilize a workforce that had been bleeding officers at an accelerating rate. It did not end the shutdown.
Now, that stopgap has an expiration date. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Fox News on Tuesday that the emergency money would dry up by the first week of May. “My payroll at DHS is just over $1.6 billion every two weeks,” Mullin said, adding that after the next paycheck cycle, there would be no remaining emergency funds and no additional executive action available to extend them.
The Workforce Damage Already Done
The funding warning lands against a backdrop of significant staffing erosion that has accumulated over more than two months of unpaid work. More than 780 TSA officers have quit since the start of the shutdown, according to a DHS spokesperson.
The callout numbers tell a parallel story. Acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security that daily callout rates among officers scheduled for duty rose from 4% before the shutdown to 11% nationwide, with multiple airports experiencing rates above 40%. At Houston’s Hobby Airport, 53% of officers called out on a single day in March, with 47% calling out the following day — meaning nearly half of scheduled staff did not report during that two-day stretch.
The agency tracked operational hotspots where staffing shortages threatened checkpoint operations — Houston recorded 44 such incidents during the shutdown, followed by New Orleans with 35 and Atlanta with 32. Nationwide, the highest single-day count reached 87 hotspots.
The disruption extended to travelers directly. At LaGuardia Airport, wait times reached up to three hours, contributing to cascading delays across the Northeast corridor. Acting Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl warned that it was not an exaggeration to suggest that some airports — particularly smaller ones — could face closure if callout rates continued to rise.
Congress Under Pressure, With No Certain Path Forward
Senate Republicans are moving forward with a plan to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection through a party-line reconciliation bill, while funding the rest of DHS through a standard appropriations measure. Whether House Speaker Mike Johnson can gather enough House Republican support for the two-track approach remains uncertain.
The airline industry has weighed in with unusual directness. Airlines for America CEO Chris Sununu told Reuters that Congress must move quickly, noting that TSA workers cannot be asked to go through this situation a third time. The comment referenced the fact that TSA workers also went unpaid for six weeks during an earlier partial government shutdown last autumn, during which the agency lost approximately 1,100 employees.
The timeline is now being shaped by a significant external factor. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino pointed to the surge of international travelers expected for the FIFA World Cup, which the U.S., Canada, and Mexico will co-host beginning in June, calling the disruptions from the ongoing shutdown a dire situation ahead of the tournament. McNeill added that any new TSA officer hired today would not complete the required four-to-six months of training in time to work checkpoints before the tournament begins.
What Early May Means for Travelers
If Congress does not act before the emergency fund is exhausted, the scenario that would follow mirrors — and could exceed — the conditions from March. At that point, TSA workers would once again report to checkpoints without compensation, with a workforce that is already smaller than it was when the shutdown began.
TSA officials have noted that prolonged funding gaps carry lasting effects on the screening workforce, as employees struggling to cover basic expenses may leave entirely — and those who do leave take months to replace given the training requirements.
DHS’s payroll cycle means the emergency funds will be gone after one more paycheck. After that, Mullin said, there is no further mechanism for an executive order to provide relief. That framing leaves the resolution squarely in the hands of Congress, where the path forward remains contested and the clock is running.
Travelers with flights in early May and beyond are advised to monitor airport wait time resources and allow additional time at checkpoints until a funding agreement is reached and staffing levels stabilize.
