DHS keeps paying Coast Guard personnel despite partial government shutdown

The Department of Homeland Security is utilizing discretionary backing to proceed paying active-duty U.S. Coast Guard unit during the department's ongoing shutdown, adjacent arsenic civilian employees stay unpaid, according to respective U.S. officials and a section spokesperson.

"Military members received their latest paycheck past week. USCG civilian workforce is not receiving paychecks," the spokesperson said successful a connection to CBS News.

Pay for DHS's much than 250,000 employees has been up successful the aerial since its backing lapsed successful mid-February due to a breakdown successful negotiations successful Congress implicit migration enforcement. Roughly 76,600 radical enactment for the Coast Guard, including astir 41,200 active-duty work members, 6,400 reservists and 19,700 auxiliarists, alongside astir 9,300 civilian employees.

For subject families, the uncertainty astir wage has created fiscal strain. Christine O'Shields, a Coast Guard spouse whose hubby has served astir 21 years, said caller paychecks arrived without informing aft families initially expected to spell unpaid. She described the accomplishment of past week's paycheck arsenic a "surprise."

"It is this roller coaster of, are we going to get paid, and are we not going to get paid?" she said. "We don't know, literally, till it hits our relationship if it's going to travel oregon not."

O'Shields said the unpredictability has forced families to hold large fiscal decisions and mundane expenses, including travel, childcare and adjacent meals retired with their children. As her household prepares for a imaginable move, she questioned however they could program for a location acquisition without reliable income documentation.

"How bash we adjacent cognize however overmuch of a location we tin bargain if we can't adjacent supply wage statements?" she said.

As of this week, a U.S. authoritative told CBS News astir 300 U.S. Coast Guard unit are stationed successful the Middle East, chiefly successful Bahrain and Oman, amid the ongoing warfare with Iran.

The shutdown is besides affecting different DHS components, including Transportation Security Administration officers and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency employees, galore of whom are working without pay oregon are furloughed. Large numbers of TSA agents person called retired of work owed to missing paychecks, starring to long lines astatine immoderate airdrome information checkpoints.

TSA Deputy Administrator Adam Stahl told CBS News the agency's quality to assistance its unit done the shutdown is "very overmuch constrained" by legislature appropriations, but "I tin archer you emphatically that we're doing perfectly everything we can."

In contrast, migration unit astatine Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection are mostly continuing operations with minimal disruption. Those agencies are flush with currency owed to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which legislature Republicans passed past summer, allotting much than $150 billion to some agencies.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who is departing her job astatine the extremity of this month, told lawmakers successful aboriginal March that ICE and Secret Service agents are inactive getting paid. 

The Trump medication has utilized discretionary backing to support paying immoderate national employees successful the past. During a 43-day-long authorities shutdown past fall, members of the military, FBI agents and DHS law enforcement personnel continued to get paychecks.

O'Shields criticized lawmakers for allowing repeated shutdowns to disrupt subject families' fiscal stability.

"Stop utilizing america arsenic pawns successful your crippled and decorativeness the game," she said, urging Americans to interaction their members of Congress to registry their concerns.

Kathy Roth Douquet, the CEO and laminitis of subject family-focused nonprofit Blue Star Families, said successful a statement: "Government shutdowns ripple acold beyond argumentation debates successful Washington, they deed location for our subject families. The uncertainty surrounding however agelong that volition past is taking a toll. Military readiness begins astatine home, and erstwhile families are anxious oregon financially stretched, it impacts our nationalist security."

Congress has yet to walk caller backing to reopen DHS, arsenic Democrats propulsion for reforms to DHS's immigration-focused agencies successful speech for their votes to money the department. Lawmakers person held aggregate votes successful caller weeks, including connected a Senate backing connection that failed to advance and competing Democratic-backed measures successful the House that person besides been blocked, leaving the section without a full-year appropriation.

Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, President Trump's nominee to pb DHS, is scheduled to look Wednesday for a nationalist confirmation proceeding earlier the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, arsenic the section helium would oversee remains unopen down with nary wide timeline for reopening.

Negotiations are expected to proceed this week, but legislature leaders person not announced a way guardant to resoluteness the standoff.

The U.S. Coast Guard referred CBS News to DHS for comment.

Kris Van Cleave contributed to this report.