By Emily Russell

The House passed a bill Thursday to fund the Department of Homeland Security, just days before the department might have run out of emergency funds to pay its workers.

The lower chamber reversed its month-long opposition to a funding bill that the Senate passed on April 2. The bill will fund the DHS minus Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. The Senate needed to remove ICE and CPB from the bill to get the votes of Democrats, who want to see reforms made to immigration enforcement made before agreeing to funding the sub-agencies.

ICE remained a sticking point for a small group of House Republicans who didn't want to see it split off into a separate bill. They threatened to withhold approval the measure until the Senate passes a separate bill to fund ICE and CBP via reconciliation. The Senate is still in the early stages of that process.

But political pressure mounted this week after DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said he was going to run out of emergency funds to pay DHS employees, including Transportation Security Administration employees that staff airport screening lines, by early May. President Donald Trump had allocated $10 billion in emergency funds to pay DHS workers in executive orders in March and April.

Mullin told Fox News last week that his department's payroll for 270,000 employees is a bit over $1.6 billion every two weeks and that, as of last week, the emergency fund had less than $1.4 billion remaining. Paying workers through another executive order is off the table, he said.

"After we get through April," Mullin said, "I got one payroll left. There is no more emergency funds."

If Congress hadn't agreed to fund DHS before next week, lengthy airport lines would have likely resumed as workers start calling out of their shifts again rather than work without pay.

Before Trump signed executive orders to pay workers, more than 11% of TSA officers called out of work at the shutdown's peak. At some airports, that number was closer to 50%. Security line wait times stretched for more than four hours at major airports, such as George Bush Intercontinental in Houston.

And since the DHS shutdown began on Feb. 14, more than 1,100 TSA workers, or roughly 2.2% of the staff, have quit their jobs. Several hundreds of those quits came after the president signed executive orders to pay workers.

Air travelers may soon face a new frustration: higher airfare. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines have both raised ticket prices due to jet fuel price rises caused by the Iran war. Airlines are also cutting back on flights to offset fuel prices.

Write to emily.russell@barrons.com.

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 30, 2026 13:59 ET (17:59 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.