ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Transportation Security Administration employees may finally start seeing some financial relief soon after going 44 days without pay during the partial government shutdown.<\/p>\n
An executive order issued by President Donald Trump would pave the way for the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSA employees starting Monday, since they have been working without pay for weeks.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
An executive order issued by President Donald Trump instructs the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSA workers starting Monday
\nTSA workers have been working unpaid for weeks during the partial government shutdown, which contributed to longer-than-usual wait times at some of the nation\u2019s major airports
TSA workers union president\u00a0Joseph Groover said he is cautiously optimistic about Trump’s executive order<\/p>\n
In a statement issued on Friday, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said payments would start going out on Monday.<\/p>\n
Trump’s executive order comes after multiple TSA employee walkouts and weeks of longer-than-usual wait times at major airports across the country.<\/p>\n
While the deal is promising, Local 556 AFGE Vice President Joseph Groover said he \u2014 and the TSA employees the union represents \u2014 is cautiously optimistic because no one knows how long it will last.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely relieved,” Groover said, noting that working without pay also affected TSA workers’ mental health. “People all around are just hoping that it\u2019s finally over \u2014 though for how long is undetermined at the moment. But hopefully this is a lasting thing, and we don\u2019t have to deal with anymore shutdowns.”<\/p>\n
Groover’s is a sentiment also shared by Vero Beach resident Charles Flournoy, who was traveling at Orlando International Airport Monday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a real interesting political battle, because doing this with executive order, I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s going to pass,” Flournoy said. “But I think it\u2019s important that these guys get paid.”<\/p>\n
State lawmakers’ reactions were mixed when Trump’s executive order was issued Friday.<\/p>\n
On one hand are Republican lawmakers like U.S. Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla. 8th District, who argued in favor of funding all of DHS in the interest of national security.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been voting over and over, I think now five times, to fully fund DHS \u2026that includes border security and it includes what\u2019s called ICE,” he said. “Because, as you know, 10 million people have entered this country illegally during the Biden years.”<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla. 10th District, however, accused Republicans on X of prioritizing funding ICE instead of putting an end to the shutdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you see the long lines at the airport, as you hear the heartbreaking stories from TSA workers not getting paid, as you hear about FEMA not being funded, just think, who\u2019s running the federal government?” Frost’s post said. “Who\u2019s running all of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House? Republicans are.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Transportation Security Administration employees may finally start seeing some financial relief soon after going 44…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[11687,26796,274,115,1335,139,141,140,99,3139,278,835],"class_list":["post-212697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-air-travel","tag-app-national-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-politics","tag-sasha-teman","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}