Markwayne Mullin stood before a camera in Washington this week with a warning that should unsettle every home in the Republic. The Homeland Security Secretary confirmed that by the first week of May, the federal government will lack the funds to pay 240,000 employees. This looming default includes the 50,000 officers of the Transportation Security Administration who ensure the safety of our skies. Mullin noted that his department’s payroll is just over $1.6 billion every two weeks, and the emergency funds used to bridge the gap have finally dried up.

“That money is dried up if I continue down this path,” Mullin said during a Tuesday broadcast. The crisis is the result of a partial government shutdown that has left the men and women at our gates working without the certainty of a paycheck. While families across the country prepare for summer travel, the infrastructure of our national peace is being treated as a bargaining chip in a city that has forgotten the value of the worker.

In a separate move on April 26, the U.S. Senate advanced a $140 billion budget resolution specifically for border enforcement. This funding, passed via reconciliation, aims to bypass the broader Department of Homeland Security shutdown to keep the frontier secured. This paper’s reading: Washington has found the political will to fund the hardware of the border while simultaneously abandoning the human beings who staff our airports and emergency agencies. It is a cold, logistical triage that prioritizes the image of security over the dignity of the civil servant.

Order is the moat that protects the treasures of our civilization. When a government ceases to pay the men who stand at the gate, it forfeits its primary moral claim to authority. A nation that expects its protectors to serve for free is a nation that has lost its way. We call on the leadership in Washington to remember that the security of the American family begins with the stability of the American guard.