Day 40: TSA Chief Warns Airports May Close, Agents Haven't Been Paid in 87 Days — and No Deal Is in Sight

The Numbers

According to testimony delivered by TSA Acting Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill to the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, March 25:

• TSA employees have worked 87 days without getting paid in fiscal year 2026 as of the hearing date (Source: TSA.gov official testimony, March 25, 2026)
• By Friday, March 27, the unpaid payroll figure will reach nearly $1 billion (Source: TSA.gov official testimony, March 25, 2026)
• The DHS funding lapse has now lasted 40 days as of Wednesday (Source: AP News, Fox News — March 25, 2026)
• DHS has gone without routine funding since mid-February (Source: AP News, March 25, 2026)

The TSA Chief's Warning: Airports May Have to Close

McNeill testified for more than three hours before the House Homeland Security Committee alongside other DHS agency officials. She described workers "piling up bills and eviction notices, even plasma donations to make ends meet," according to AP News, and warned of potential airport closures if the funding standoff continues. (Source: AP News, March 25, 2026)

McNeill said in testimony: "This is a dire situation." On airport closures, she said: "At this point, we have to look at all options on the table. And that does require us to, at some point, make very difficult choices as to which airports we might try to keep open and which ones we might have to shut down as our callout rates increase." (Source: AP News, March 25, 2026)

She also warned lawmakers they must ensure "this never happens again." (Source: AP News, March 25, 2026)

The House Homeland Security Committee hearing was titled "Funding Lapse and Security Gaps: Assessing the Harmful Impacts of the DHS Shutdown on Americans," and was chaired by Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY). (Source: Fox News, March 25, 2026; House Homeland Security Committee announcement, March 19, 2026)

The Musk Offer — and the White House's Response

Earlier this week, Elon Musk posted on X that he "would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country." (Source: Fox News, March 25, 2026)

The White House acknowledged the offer on Wednesday. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Fox News: "We greatly appreciate Elon's generous offer." But the administration declined, citing legal complications. Jackson said: "This would pose great legal challenges due to his involvement with federal government contracts. The fastest way to ensure TSA employees — and all DHS employees — get paid is for Democrats to fund the Department of Homeland Security." (Source: Fox News, March 25, 2026)

Musk holds multiple federal government contracts through SpaceX and other entities, which would create conflict-of-interest questions if he were to directly compensate federal employees.

What's Blocking a Deal

The DHS shutdown is specifically tied to immigration enforcement — not the government-wide budgets. The House passed a DHS appropriations bill in both January and March 2026; it has been stalled in the Senate for over a month. (Source: House Homeland Security Committee, March 19, 2026)

Democrats have demanded changes to the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations — specifically following the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by federal officers during protests. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said: "We've been talking about ICE reforms from day one." (Source: AP News, March 25, 2026)

The latest Republican proposal would fund most of DHS but exclude the enforcement and removal operations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that have been central to the debate. The GOP offer added some new restraints on immigration officers, including the use of body cameras, but excluded other Democratic demands — such as requirements that federal agents wear identification and refrain from conducting raids around schools, churches, or other sensitive locations. (Source: AP News, March 25, 2026)

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said late Wednesday that if Democrats put a "more realistic offer on the table, we'll be back in business." (Source: AP News, March 25, 2026)

House Speaker Mike Johnson said of the Democratic position: "They know this is crazy." (Source: AP News, March 25, 2026)

Senate Minority Leader Schumer blocked a vote on the Republican proposal Wednesday afternoon. (Source: Fox News, March 25, 2026)

Conservative Republicans also oppose the compromise — demanding full ICE funding and skeptical of promises from leadership to address Trump's proof-of-citizenship voting bill in a subsequent package. (Source: AP News, March 25, 2026)

President Trump, who initially appeared to have approved a deal framework, has declined to use his political weight to push a resolution through, according to AP News. (Source: AP News, March 25, 2026)

Senator Graham's Assessment

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) accused Democrats of "driving the country off a cliff" in the funding fight. Graham told reporters that Democratic lawmakers "pulled out" of a deal two days earlier. "This needs to end," he said. "This can't be normal. You can't expect people like me, and others, to go solve problems and you create a new problem for us." (Source: Fox News, March 25, 2026)

Graham described the situation in stark terms: "I have never been more worried about the consequences of this continuing, not only for the inconvenience of the public, which is real and enormous, but for those who are working without pay." He said he believes the country is at "high risk." (Source: Fox News, March 25, 2026)

Historical Context: Government Shutdowns and Agency Funding Lapses

The current DHS-specific shutdown is structurally unusual. Most government shutdowns affect broad swaths of the federal government; this one is targeted specifically at the Department of Homeland Security. The most relevant recent precedent is the 43-day government shutdown from October 1 to November 12, 2025 — now the longest in U.S. history — which also involved TSA workers going unpaid. Before that, the record was the 35-day partial shutdown of December 2018–January 2019, which involved DHS funding and a border wall dispute. (Source: Wikipedia, "Government shutdowns in the United States"; KOMO News, March 2026)

The current DHS-specific lapse, at 40 days, has already surpassed the 35-day 2018-19 benchmark and is approaching the October 2025 record. Reuters reported Wednesday that more than 480 TSA officers have already quit since the mid-February start of the current shutdown — resignations are permanent departures that compound the callout rate problem. The 35-day 2018-19 shutdown ended when Senate Republicans joined Democrats to pressure President Trump to reopen the government without wall funding; no comparable cross-party pressure has materialized in 2026. (Source: Reuters, March 25, 2026)

The complicating factor unique to this shutdown: TSA employees are working without pay while simultaneously managing record airport wait times driven partly by a separate crisis — Iran war-driven energy costs straining travel demand and airport operations — and an Iran-war context that makes DHS security operations politically charged in new ways.

Why It Matters

The warning from TSA's own acting administrator that some airports may have to close is not rhetorical — it reflects an operational reality. TSA callout rates (workers calling out sick or absent) tend to spike during extended unpaid periods, degrading security screening capacity. The 2018–19 shutdown saw documented increases in callout rates that led to longer wait times and partial closure of some airport security lanes.

At 87 days without pay in FY2026 and nearly $1 billion in accumulated unpaid payroll, the financial stress on the TSA workforce is acute. Record wait times are already a documented reality, according to AP. If closures of individual airport checkpoints or terminals occur, the disruption to air travel — already facing elevated demand amid the energy crisis — would compound existing economic strain.

The political impasse has three distinct blocs preventing resolution: Senate Democrats demanding ICE reforms, conservative Republicans demanding full ICE funding, and a White House that has declined to actively broker a deal. That three-way deadlock is harder to break than a simple two-party standoff.