{"id":25206,"date":"2026-04-06T21:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T21:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/trumps-dhs-pay-order-has-workers-paid-but-legal-experts-say-the-money-isnt-legally-there\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T21:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T21:50:13","slug":"trumps-dhs-pay-order-has-workers-paid-but-legal-experts-say-the-money-isnt-legally-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/trumps-dhs-pay-order-has-workers-paid-but-legal-experts-say-the-money-isnt-legally-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s DHS Pay Order Has Workers Paid \u2014 But Legal Experts Say the Money Isn\u2019t Legally There"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"post-detail__content blocks\">\n<p class=\"is-style-lead\">President Trump\u2019s DHS pay order has directed all Department of Homeland Security employees to be paid using redirected federal funds, but legal and budget experts say the administration may be violating a 150-year-old law that gives Congress sole control over federal spending.<\/p>\n<div id=\"cn-block-summary-block_a48912bf7c2d5e4af3148791e31c87d9\" class=\"cn-block-summary\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__nav tabs\">\n        <span class=\"tabs__item is-selected\">Summary<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__content\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Trump signed two executive directives \u2014 one on March 27 for TSA workers and an expanded memo on April 4 for all DHS employees \u2014 directing pay using funds from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, sidestepping the ongoing partial shutdown<\/li>\n<li>Legal experts warn the move may conflict with the Antideficiency Act, which bars the executive branch from spending money that Congress has not appropriated for a specific purpose<\/li>\n<li>The administration has provided no detailed public justification for how it is legally connecting TSA operations to the bill\u2019s DHS border enforcement funds, drawing criticism from budget analysts on both sides<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-summary --><\/p>\n<p>President Trump\u2019s DHS pay order, which directs the Department of Homeland Security to pay all its employees using funds redirected from last year\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, has put paychecks back in workers\u2019 accounts but opened a serious constitutional question that legal experts say the administration has yet to answer. Trump initially signed a directive on March 27 covering TSA workers, then expanded it on April 4 to include all DHS employees, citing \u201can emergency situation compromising the Nation\u2019s security.\u201d<\/p>\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bypassing Congress on Spending<\/h1>\n<p>The Antideficiency Act, a 150-year-old federal statute, bars the executive branch from spending money that has not been expressly appropriated by Congress for the specific purpose being funded. Trump\u2019s order directed the DHS secretary to use funds with \u201ca reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations\u201d from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act \u2014 a law that allocated $10 billion to DHS for border-related functions, with no specific mention of TSA.<\/p>\n<p>Budget analysts flagged the ambiguity immediately. \u201cThe administration\u2019s provided no real clarity about what they\u2019re doing publicly that would allow someone to even figure out whether what they\u2019re doing is legal or not legal,\u201d Devin O\u2019Connor, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told CNBC. \u201cThey haven\u2019t made the case for it in any kind of public way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Where the Money Is Coming From \u2014 and Why That Matters<\/h2>\n<p>Administration officials <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/04\/01\/tsa-trump-dhs-shutdown-airports.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">confirmed<\/a> the payments are being drawn from the One Big Beautiful Bill\u2019s DHS fund, which gave the secretary discretion to deploy resources supporting DHS\u2019s border mission. Bobby Kogan of the Center for American Progress estimated the cost of funding TSA runs approximately $140 million per week, suggesting the administration could sustain payments for nearly a year before that pool runs dry. But critics note that the bill\u2019s language does not cover TSA, which handles airport security rather than border enforcement, making the legal nexus tenuous.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Majority Leader Thune acknowledged the order as a \u201cshort-term solution\u201d that \u201ctakes the immediate pressure off,\u201d while noting it does nothing to resolve the underlying standoff between the two chambers.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Constitutional Fault Line<\/h2>\n<p>As crypto.news reported, government shutdowns carry consequences beyond the immediate departments affected \u2014 including delays to economic data releases, stalled regulatory activity, and heightened uncertainty across financial markets. The constitutional issue here runs deeper than a funding dispute. Article I of the US Constitution vests the power of the purse exclusively in Congress. Trump\u2019s move to unilaterally pay workers without an active appropriation mirrors actions that have historically invited legal challenge under the Antideficiency Act.<\/p>\n<p>A second broader executive memo on April 4 extended the same approach to every DHS employee, not just TSA, including furloughed workers and those in agencies not obviously connected to the One Big Beautiful Bill\u2019s border funding mandate. As crypto.news noted in its coverage of the DHS shutdown\u2019s earlier market impact, prolonged fiscal uncertainty of this kind tends to weigh on investor sentiment and delay forward guidance from the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAmerica\u2019s air travel system has reached its breaking point,\u201d Trump said in his original March 27 memo. What remains unresolved is whether his chosen remedy is within his legal authority to execute.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump\u2019s DHS pay order has directed all Department of Homeland Security employees to be paid using redirected federal funds, but legal and budget experts say the administration may be&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25207,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25206\/revisions\/25207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}