WASHINGTON, April 3 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday signed an emergency order to pay “each and every” employee at the Department of Homeland Security the equivalent of compensation and benefits lost during the partial shutdown of the agency, according to a memo published by the White House.
Trump said the funds would have a “reasonable and logical nexus” to DHS functions, possibly alluding to legal questions surrounding the potential reallotment of funds appropriated by Congress for specific purposes.
U.S. lawmakers have failed to agree on legislation to fund the agency in the wake of deadly shootings by immigration agents earlier this year.
Tens of thousands of civilians at the U.S. Coast Guard, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies have not been paid since the government funding standoff began in February.
The U.S. Senate cleared the way early on Thursday for the House of Representatives to pass a DHS funding bill through September 30 that would end a nearly seven-week partial shutdown. The U.S. House of Representatives met on Thursday but did not vote to approve a funding bill.
On Monday, 50,000 Transportation Security Administration airport security officers began getting paid after Trump signed an order last week to pay them.
The standoff led to daily absences of 10% or more of TSA workers and brought chaos and long security lines to U.S. airports.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa and Douglas Gillison in Washington; Editing by Edmund Klamann and David Gregorio)
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