Pressure mounts on Congress to end the funding shutdown as long TSA lines continue

WASHINGTON — Pressure is mounting on Congress to end the funding shutdown that’s resulted in travel disruptions, missed paychecks and even warnings of airport closures, but lawmakers have yet to resolve the underlying issue of reining in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement operations.Senators are expected to vote Thursday on a Republican proposal that would fund the Transportation Security Administration and much of the Department of Homeland Security, except the enforcement and removal operations conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.But it’s expected to fail.Democrats argue the GOP plan does not go far enough at putting guardrails on ICE, Customs and Border Protection and other federal officers who are engaged in the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps, particularly after the deaths of two Americans protesting the actions in Minneapolis.With Congress set to leave town by week’s end for its own spring break recess, calls are intensifying for an end to the 41-day stalemate that’s put the livelihoods of TSA officers at risk as they provide airport security without pay.“This is a dire situation,” the acting TSA administrator, Ha Nguyen McNeill, testified at a House hearing on Wednesday.She described the multiple hardships facing unpaid TSA workers — piling up bills and eviction notices, even plasma donations to make ends meet — and warned of potential airport closures if more employees refuse to come to work.

Daily callout rates have increased to 11% nationwide.“At this point, we have to look at all options on the table,” she said.“And that does require us to, at some point, make very difficult choices as to which airports we might try to keep open and which ones we might have to shut down as our callout rates increase.”The Republican president has largely stayed out of the public debate over the path his party should take to end the standoff.

Trump initially signed off on the plan the GOP senator...