Transportation Administration Security officers should receive their first paychecks in more than a month next week, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said on Friday.
It came after TSA workers waited on Congress to come to an agreement and end the partial shutdown that's left them and other DHS employees without pay.
TSA employees have been required to work the entire 42 days of the shutdown, which began Feb. 14. TSA officers told ABC News that they missed bill payments and got second jobs to pay ends meet. Union representatives described to ABC News stories of officers having to pull their children out of day care and in some cases getting eviction notices because they can't pay their rent.
President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum on Friday asking for DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to work with the Office of Management and Budget to use funds "that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations" to pay the agency's workforce. The TSA employees will be paid through funds allocated by Trump's sweeping domestic policy bill signed last summer, according to a senior administration official.
"Today, at the direction of President Trump and the Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, TSA has immediately begun the process of paying its workforce," a DHS spokesperson said. "TSA officers should begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30."
It is unclear what legal authority Trump is issuing this order under. The White House hasn't responded to ABC News' request for comment.
Rebecca Wolf, a TSA officer at Boise International Airport and president of AFGE TSA Local 1127, reacted to the news with mixed emotions.
"I'll believe it when I see it. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of faith," she told ABC News. "I did get a message that the order that was signed is to pay us for the missed paycheck, so we'll get the finished or the partial check we are missing from pay period three, four and five, but there was nothing in there stating that we would be paid going forward."
Speaking prior to Trump's move, Paul Uecker, a TSA officer at Duluth International Airport and Vice President of Greater Minnesota American Federation of Government Employees Local 899, told ABC News about the hardship people at the agency have endured.
"I know of at least one officer at MSP (Minneapolis--Saint Paul International Airport) who quit because they were having eviction processes started against them," Uecker said on Friday. "They needed to find a way to get some money so that they could hopefully avoid that."
Federal employees experienced the longest shutdown in the nation's history -- 43 days -- last fall. TSA officers told ABC News that they had depleted their savings after the last shutdown and were not fully recovered when the partial shutdown began in February.
Senate Democrats vowed to block funding for DHS until reforms are made to Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal law enforcement.
The Senate came to a deal on Friday morning to fund DHS, excluding appropriations for immigration enforcement, but the House Republicans rejected it. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, said his party will instead push for a short-term bill to fund the entire department for 60 days.
"I feel like they're playing with our lives," Oksana Kelly, a TSA officer at Orlando International Airport and mother of two, told ABC News on Thursday. "We all have children. We all have parents that, you know, people [to] take care of. It's not just some random officers. It's real people."
Also speaking before Trump's memo, Kelly and her husband Deron are both TSA officers who have been working without pay during the shutdown and said they have depleted their savings because of both shutdowns. Deron had to take a second job as a DoorDash driver, according to Kelly.
She was tearful when she described her inability to give their 7-year-old son the birthday party that he wanted at a trampoline park.
"This is probably the hardest thing I have to do," Oksana Kelly told ABC News as she wiped away tears. "He's like, 'Is this something we're doing?' And we're like, 'Sorry buddy, you know this birthday is going to be at the community park because Mommy and Daddy can't afford the trampoline park.'"
Trump deployed ICE agents to airports around the country on Monday to assist TSA officers with long lines at security checkpoints. Some officers told ABC News that the ICE personnel were not doing anything to address those lines because they aren't trained in screening passengers and baggage. TSA officers get about six months of training to do their jobs, according to employees who spoke to ABC News.
"They're outside the security area, watching as people are coming in, watching as people are coming out. We were told that they were supposed to be there to offer us assistance, and there's been no assistance," Maggie Sabatino, a TSA employee at Philadelphia International Airport, told ABC News on Wednesday. "Standing around and just watching, it's not helping us. It's putting us on edge, like we're waiting for something to happen. We're afraid of something happening."
TSA saw the highest call-out rates of the shutdown on Thursday with more than 3,450 officers out, according to newly released numbers by TSA. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston was the worst, with a callout rate of 44.4%. The second worst was Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where TSA officer Yolanda Keaton works.
Keaton, who is also a steward for AFGE Local 554, told ABC News on Monday about a colleague of hers who is a single mother.
"She has a child that she has to face every day. It's hard for her to smile with her child when she doesn't know where their next meal is going to come from," Keaton told ABC News. "She doesn't know if she's going to keep her apartment because she's had eviction notices."
Uecker, the TSA officer at Duluth International Airport, told ABC News on Friday that even after DHS is funded again, he doesn't know how secure he and his colleagues will feel with their jobs.
"I've heard there will be many more people who are considering quitting just because of the fact that we're in danger of shutdowns all the time," he said.
ABC News' Sam Sweeney, Ayesha Ali, Luke Barr, Emily Chang, Nicholas Kerr, John Parkinson, Isabella Murray and Jeana Fermi contributed to this report