President Donald Trump announced Thursday night he would immediately begin paying Transportation Security Administration workers through an emergency executive order.
The order promised to end long delays at the nation’s airports and allow TSA workers to get paychecks they have been denied during a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security that has persisted for more than 40 days.
It also offered a partial reprieve for Congress, which has been locked in a bitter partisan standoff over immigration enforcement policies that has kept the department unfunded for weeks. Long lines at airport checkpoints and complaints from TSA workers had become critical pressure points in a search for an end to the shutdown.
