Senate TSA moves to center of shutdown drama as jittery lawmakers offer warnings for economy by Alexander Bolton - 03/02/26 6:00 AM ET by Alexander Bolton - 03/02/26 6:00 AM ET Share ✕ LinkedIn LinkedIn Email Email NOW PLAYING Republican and Democratic senators are quietly mulling ways to limit the impact of a prolonged government shutdown on air travel and, by extension, the broader U.S. economy amid a stalemate on funding the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). TSA officers are set to miss their first round of paychecks later this week, which has lawmakers in both parties bracing for rising absences at the agency and growing lines at airports around the country. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and other Republicans are now floating the idea of shifting some of the funding Congress allocated in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year for border security and immigration enforcement to airport security during the shutdown. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) says he’s open to the idea of letting the Trump administration shift money that was allocated in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to allow TSA agents to continue to get paid during an extended shutdown. “I’m open to the idea but I want to see a good-faith effort by the Republicans in the Senate and the administration to deal with the ICE problem,” Durbin said, referring to ICE’s aggressive tactics in Minneapolis, which have sparked a national backlash. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) expressed her concerns that a reduction in TSA services will cut into air travel and reverberate throughout the economy. “You’re going to shut down trillions of dollars, you shut down our economy by shutting down our airspace,” she warned. “In every single state, travel — not just for tourism — for business, for convention, for our goods and services” has a substantial impact on the economy. “Every tax base in this country goes down,” she said, predicting a domino effect if people start to cut back on travel because of slowdowns at airports. Rosen has proposed funding TSA and other critical functions of the Homeland Security Department separately from ICE and CBP. “What would probably be the best is to find some way to separate everything else out of Homeland. You have Coast Guard, you have TSA, you have FEMA,” she said. “TSA is not part of this.” Rosen slammed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to shut down Global Entry and her threat to suspend TSA PreCheck, programs that allow travelers to move swiftly through customs and airport security. She sent a letter to Noem on Thursday pressing her to reopen Global Entry and ensure that PreCheck remains open during the shutdown. Chris Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire and president and CEO of Airlines for America, warned in an op-ed published in The Hill that America’s aviation system could be “plunged into chaos.” More than 9,000 flights were delayed or canceled during last year’s 43-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history. During that shutdown, both air traffic controllers and TSA officers were required to work without pay. Thune says he’s open to the administration shifting some of the $190 billion in funding that was allocated to the Department of Homeland Security in last year’s budget reconciliation package to keep TSA workers paid for the duration of the partial government shutdown. “I think anything you can do to keep people employed — government shutdowns, nobody wins,” Thune said. “If they can figure out a way to pay government employees, absolutely.” “These are people who have jobs and have commitments and have families,” he added. “It’s going to be really unfortunate if we get to a point — and I hope we don’t — where people aren’t getting paid because the Democrats continue to insist on changes to things that just aren’t going to be feasible or tenable,” he said. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said TSA workers could miss their first paychecks this week unless negotiators reach a deal. She said she would “fully support” any decision the Trump administration might make to shift around funding to minimize the impact of the shutdown at airports, though she argued reaching a deal to fund the entire Homeland Security Department would be the best solution. The White House shifted funding during the 43-day full government shutdown that spanned all of October and the beginning of November to ensure that military service members didn’t miss paychecks. White House officials haven’t yet indicated what