On April 21, 2026, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin went on Fox & Friends and said the thing that everyone inside DHS already knew: the money is about to run out. Not metaphorically. Not “we’re tightening our belts.” The emergency fund that Trump tapped in late March to finally pay TSA agents after six weeks of working for free — that fund is almost empty. “There is no more emergency fund,” Mullin said. “So the president can’t do another executive order for us to use money because there’s no more money there.”
“There Is No More Emergency Fund.”
The math is simple and brutal. DHS spends $1.6 billion on payroll every two weeks. As of April 19, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act emergency fund — the $10 billion pot that Republicans passed last summer, the one Trump tapped via executive memo on March 27 to pay TSA workers — had less than $1.4 billion remaining. That’s not even enough for one full pay period. The money dries up the first week of May.
Mullin was asked what happens after that. He didn’t have an answer, because there isn’t one. The presidential memo trick already got used. There are no other emergency funds. The rest of the federal government is funded through September 30. Only DHS is in this hole. And it’s been in this hole since February 14 — 72 days and counting — because Republicans refuse to fund the department unless Democrats agree to hand ICE a blank check with no oversight provisions.
“That money is dried up if I continue down this path the first week of May, because my payroll at DHS is just over $1.6 billion every two weeks. So the money is going extremely fast and once that happens, there is no emergency funds after that. I’ve got one payroll left and there are no more emergency funds, so the president can’t do another executive order because there’s no more money there.”
838 TSA Officers Have Quit. Four-Hour Airport Lines. And It’s About to Get Worse.
Since the shutdown began on February 14, more than 838 TSA officers have walked off the job for good. They didn’t transfer. They didn’t take leave. They quit. They quit because for six weeks nobody paid them, and when Trump finally signed a memo to pay them using emergency funds, many had already found other work. Security lines at some airports exceeded four hours in March — the longest in TSA’s 25-year history. Call-out rates hit record highs.
The March fix was supposed to be temporary. Congress was supposed to figure this out. Instead, Speaker Johnson refused to bring the Senate’s clean DHS funding bill to a vote because it didn’t include money for ICE and CBP. That bill passed the Senate with bipartisan support on March 27. It would have funded TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, Secret Service, Customs, and every other DHS agency that has nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Johnson killed it. And now those same workers face going unpaid again — and this time there’s no emergency fund to bail them out.
“Failure to pass this bipartisan compromise before Friday, April 24 guarantees that Transportation Security Officers, civilian Coast Guard employees, and FEMA professionals will go unpaid unless the administration steps in, as it did last month.” — Everett Kelley, President of the American Federation of Government Employees
The Senate’s Answer: A 3:35 AM Vote to Give ICE $70 Billion.
Two days after Mullin’s Fox News admission, the Senate held a vote-a-rama. Starting around 9:30 PM on April 22, senators plowed through six hours of amendments — Democrats offered measures on cost of living, affordable housing, veteran care. Every single one was rejected along party lines. Then, at 3:35 AM on April 24, the Senate adopted a budget reconciliation resolution on a 50-48 vote. The resolution authorizes committees to draft legislation allocating up to $70 billion for ICE and Customs and Border Protection. That’s the number. $70 billion. For the two agencies that have been fully funded this entire time while everyone else went without.
Two Republicans broke ranks: Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Every Democrat voted against it. Chuck Grassley and Mark Warner were absent. The resolution now goes to the House, where the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees have until May 15 to draft the actual legislation. Trump has imposed a June 1 deadline for the final bill. That means even under the most optimistic Republican timeline, DHS workers face at least two to four weeks of no pay in May. Memorial Day weekend is the forcing function. Congress will move when airport chaos becomes politically unbearable. Not before.
The reconciliation resolution funds only ICE and CBP — immigration enforcement agencies. It does not fund TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, Secret Service, CISA, or any of the other 200,000+ DHS employees whose paychecks depend on the clean DHS funding bill that the House still hasn’t voted on. The reconciliation process was chosen specifically to cut Democrats out of the process entirely, bypassing the 60-vote filibuster threshold with a simple majority.
The Strategy Is the Cruelty.
Here is what Republicans are doing, stated plainly: they are using TSA workers, Coast Guard personnel, FEMA professionals, and Secret Service agents as hostages to force through $70 billion in immigration enforcement funding without Democratic input or oversight. The Senate already passed a bipartisan bill that would fund all of those agencies. Johnson won’t bring it to the floor until the ICE money is secured. So everyone who isn’t ICE or Border Patrol can go to hell.
Democrats have demanded modest guardrails on immigration enforcement in exchange for ICE funding: no raids at schools and hospitals, body cameras on federal agents, judicial warrants before entering private property. These are not radical demands. They are the bare minimum of civilized law enforcement. Republicans have treated every single one of them as a dealbreaker.
Meanwhile, Mullin — a man whose entire department is about to miss payroll — went on Fox News and blamed Democrats. He said two-thirds of his workforce is still furloughed and demanded Democrats explain why they are “putting homeland at risk.” This from the party that has blocked every clean funding bill for 72 days. This from the administration that turned a DHS shutdown into the longest in American history so ICE could operate without congressional oversight.
What Happens Next.
The House reconvenes today, April 27. Speaker Johnson has said he’ll push the ICE reconciliation through first and deal with the rest of DHS later. “Later” means after the committees draft a $70 billion spending bill, after the House and Senate pass it, after any conference resolves differences, and after Trump signs it. The most optimistic timeline puts that at late May. The realistic timeline is June.
In the meantime: TSA agents get one more paycheck. After that, nothing. Coast Guard civilian employees, same. FEMA workers responding to the tornadoes that just ripped through the Heartland, same. The Secret Service agents who just stopped a man with a manifesto and a shotgun at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner — they get to wonder if their next paycheck is coming too.
The shutdown has been going on for 72 days. The record was 35 days in 2018–2019. Nobody is pretending this is about fiscal responsibility anymore. It’s about ICE. It has always been about ICE. And every TSA officer who quit, every Coast Guard rescue that got delayed, every FEMA deployment that went understaffed — that was the plan. That was always the plan.
Sources.
- Politico: Mullin: No more money to pay DHS employees as of May — April 21, 2026. Mullin’s Fox News interview; OBBBA fund down to $1.4B; Trump June 1 deadline; Johnson won’t bring Senate DHS bill to vote until reconciliation moves.
- Government Executive: DHS to again stop paying employees in May if shutdown continues — April 22, 2026. $1.6B payroll every two weeks; DHS recalled furloughed employees after Trump memo; 92% normally work during shutdowns without pay; 67+ days.
- CNN/WRAL: DHS warns it will run out of money to pay airport security workers — April 22, 2026. 838+ TSA officers quit; four-hour security lines in March; AFGE president Kelley letter to House; 50,000 TSA workers affected.
- CBS News: Senate adopts budget resolution after marathon vote-a-rama — April 23, 2026. 50-48 vote at 3:35 AM; Paul and Murkowski break ranks; $70B for ICE/CBP; committees have until May 15; vote-a-rama lasted ~6 hours.
- FedTools: DHS Runs Out of Payroll Money in Early May — April 23, 2026. Detailed payroll analysis; OBBBA fund balance vs. burn rate; at least one missed paycheck, possibly two; Memorial Day weekend as forcing function.
- Xinhua/Bernama: DHS Secretary Says Money to Pay Salaries Will Dry Up — April 22, 2026. Mullin quotes; DHS funding expired Feb 13; TSA agents had been working without pay for over a month; higher rates of absenteeism.