Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned on Tuesday that his department will be unable to pay out employee salaries starting in early May amid the ongoing partial government shutdown.
The lapse in funding, which impacts DHS’s 22 agencies, has now stretched for a record 66 days.
“Fortunately, what President Trump did through an executive order allowed us to grab emergency funding that came out of the One Big Beautiful Bill … but that money is dried up, if I continue down this path, the first week of May,” Mullin said in an interview with Fox News.
The president signed a memorandum earlier this month authorizing the release of $10 billion in emergency funds from the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year. This pot of money was depleted to less than $1.4 billion at the end of last week, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
Mullin explained that the department pays out over $1.6 billion in wages every two weeks.
