The Department of Homeland Security is using discretionary funding to continue paying active-duty U.S. Coast Guard personnel during the department’s ongoing shutdown, even as civilian employees remain unpaid, according to several U.S. officials and a department spokesperson.
“Military members received their latest paycheck last week. USCG civilian workforce is not receiving paychecks,” the spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News.
Pay for DHS’s more than 250,000 employees has been up in the air since its funding lapsed in mid-February due to a breakdown in negotiations in Congress over immigration enforcement. Roughly 76,600 people work for the Coast Guard, including roughly 41,200 active-duty service members, 6,400 reservists and 19,700 auxiliarists, alongside about 9,300 civilian employees.
For military families, the uncertainty around pay has created financial strain. Christine O’Shields, a Coast Guard spouse whose husband has served nearly 21 years, said recent paychecks arrived without warning after families initially expected to go unpaid. She described the arrival of last week’s paycheck as 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 account if it’s going to come or not.”
O’Shields said the unpredictability has forced families to delay major financial decisions and everyday expenses, including travel, childcare and even meals out with their children. As her family prepares for a potential move, she questioned how they could plan for a home purchase without reliable income documentation.
“How do we even know how much of a house we can buy if we can’t even provide pay statements?” she said.
As of this week, a U.S. official told CBS News roughly 300 U.S. Coast Guard personnel are stationed in the Middle East, primarily in Bahrain and Oman, amid the ongoing war with Iran.
The shutdown is also affecting other DHS components, including Transportation Security Administration officers and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency employees, many of whom are working without pay or are furloughed. Large numbers of TSA agents have called out of work due to missing paychecks, leading to long lines at some airport security checkpoints.
TSA Deputy Administrator Adam Stahl told CBS News the agency’s ability to assist its staff through the shutdown is “very much constrained” by congressional appropriations, but “I can tell you emphatically that we’re doing absolutely everything we can.”
In contrast, immigration personnel at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection are largely continuing operations with minimal disruption. Those agencies are flush with cash due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which congressional Republicans passed last summer, allotting more than $150 billion to both agencies.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who is departing her job at the end of this month, told lawmakers in early March that ICE and Secret Service agents are still getting paid.
The Trump administration has used discretionary funding to keep paying some federal employees in the past. During a 43-day-long government shutdown last fall, members of the militaryFBI agents and DHS law enforcement personnel continued to get paychecks.
O’Shields criticized lawmakers for allowing repeated shutdowns to disrupt military families’ financial stability.
“Stop using us as pawns in your game and finish the game,” she said, urging Americans to contact their members of Congress to register their concerns.
Kathy Roth Douquet, the CEO and founder of military family-focused nonprofit Blue Star Families, said in a statement: “Government shutdowns ripple far beyond policy debates in Washington, they hit home for our military families. The uncertainty surrounding how long that will last is taking a toll. Military readiness begins at home, and when families are anxious or financially stretched, it impacts our national security.”
Congress has yet to pass new funding to reopen DHS, as Democrats push for reforms to DHS’s immigration-focused agencies in exchange for their votes to fund the department. Lawmakers have held multiple votes in recent weeks, including on a Senate funding proposal that failed to advance and competing Democratic-backed measures in the House that have also been blocked, leaving the department without a full-year appropriation.
Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, President Trump’s nominee to lead DHS, is scheduled to appear Wednesday for a public confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, as the department he would oversee remains shut down with no clear timeline for reopening.
Negotiations are expected to continue this week, but congressional leaders have not announced a path forward to resolve the standoff.
The U.S. Coast Guard referred CBS News to DHS for comment.