March 30, 2026, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government Executive Director Robert Romano today issued the following statement thanking President Donald Trump for paying Transportation Security Administration workers who had been on the job without pay for more than month:
“President Donald Trump is doing the right thing and upholding the Thirteenth Amendment by directing the Department of Homeland Security to pay Transportation Security Administration workers who had been working for more than a month without pay as excepted workers during the shutdown. The workers are already legally guaranteed backpay with interest as soon as the shutdown ends anyway. The Anti-Deficiency Act provides for ‘excepted’ employees but the law only contemplates post-lapse compensation. In the meantime, involuntary servitude is strictly forbidden by the 13th Amendment. The Treasury is still collecting revenue. Under the Thirteenth Amendment, after a prolonged shutdown, no matter what the excepted employees will ultimately have to be paid. The Anti-Deficiency Act would not be able to overcome the Thirteenth Amendment in the event of an indefinite lapse of funding, which is exactly what we have now. It would unconstitutional to not pay them and so, under the emergency, the President ultimately has to pay them. Even if courts later find out that compelling excepted workers to remain on the job was unconstitutional, they would also have to find in so doing that they had to be paid. Congress cannot vote to take slaves.”
Attachments:
Executive Order to fund TSA workers: “Accordingly, I hereby direct the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown, consistent with applicable law, including 31 U.S.C. 1301(a).” President Donald Trump, March 30, 2026 at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/memorandum-for-the-secretary-of-homeland-security-and-the-director-of-the-office-of-management-and-budget/
For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at media@limitgov.org.
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