President Trump issued an order regarding the salaries of Department of Homeland Security employees, mandating that all department employees be paid using redirected federal funds. However, legal and budget experts say the administration may be violating a 150-year-old law that grants Congress full control over federal spending.

Trump signed two executive directives—one on March 27 for Transportation Security Administration workers, and an expanded memo on April 4 for all DHS employees—directing salary payments using funds from the "Big Beautiful One Law," thereby bypassing the ongoing partial government shutdown.
Legal experts warn that this move could conflict with the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prohibits the executive branch from spending funds not appropriated by Congress for a specific purpose.
The administration has not provided a detailed public justification for how it legally linked TSA operations to DHS border enforcement funds in the bill, drawing criticism from budget analysts on both sides.
President Trump’s order regarding DHS employee salaries, which requires the department to pay all staff using funds diverted from the "Big Beautiful One Law" enacted last year, has restored employees’ paychecks but also raised a significant constitutional question that legal experts say the administration has yet to answer. Trump initially signed an order on March 27 including TSA employees, then expanded it on April 4 to cover all DHS employees, citing "a national emergency threatening the security of the country."