Partial Government Shutdown Pushes Airport Security to Its Limits

As U.S. airlines prepare for a record number of travelers during the spring travel period, the Department of Homeland Security announced that more than 300 of the nation’s Transportation Security Administration officers have left the agency during the partial government shutdown. 

During the same period, its officers’ unscheduled absences have also increased to double digits. Data obtained by CBS News shows the nationwide callout rate for “frontline officers” to be at 6 percent during the shutdown, up from 2 percent before agency funding ran out. 

After receiving partial payment at the end of February, nearly 50,000 TSA workers did not receive full paychecks for the first pay period of March last Friday. The Department of Homeland Security noted this was the “third time in nearly six months” that workers would be “forced to work without pay.”

It’s now day 32 of the partial government shutdown, initiated by Democrats’ demands that the Trump administration reform its immigration enforcement tactics. The record for the longest government shutdown is the 43-day shutdown that ended last November. 

In a speech on the Senate floor last Thursday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blamed Republicans for putting “preconditions on funding TSA.” (RELATED: Unconcerned, Unconscionable, but Sadly Not Unexpected)

Senate Democrats have proposed legislation to fund components of the Department of Homeland Security, including the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and U.S. Coast Guard. However, Senate Republicans have declined to pass any bill that doesn’t include funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

While the White House has reportedly laid out a plan for changing its immigration enforcement methods, “Democrats have yet to send a formal counteroffer,” according to Politico. Echoing that sentiment, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said Schumer had for weeks been “sitting on what is a good faith offer from the White House.”

On Sunday, President Donald Trump offered his thanks to the “great TSA agents” working unpaid because the “Radical Left Democrats refuse to honor the deal that was approved and voted on in Congress.”  

With neither side budging on key aspects of the dispute — such as banning agents from wearing masks and mandating the use of judicial warrants when making arrests — the exodus of workers could leave the TSA ill-equipped to handle the upcoming travel period.

In areas where staffing shortages could derail operations, known as “hotspots,” the agency has so far tracked 44 of these incidents in Houston, 35 in New Orleans, and 32 in Atlanta. So far, the highest single-day count for hotspots during this shutdown is 87, recorded on March 8, according to CBS News. 

Public opinion has fallen squarely behind the unpaid workers, as union and industry leaders call on Congress to act and end the shutdown. Airports in Denver, Seattle, Las Vegas, Cleveland, Orlando, New York, and New Jersey have set up donation bins for Transportation Security officers, according to the Guardian.

Christine Vitel, a TSA officer at Chicago O’Hare International Airport and the executive vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 777, told the New York Times that at least two members of her union had been evicted during the shutdown, adding the issue was approaching a “breaking point.” 

Citing recent polling that found “93 percent” of Americans support “paying federal aviation workers during government shutdowns,” the CEOs of the nation’s top airline and cargo companies sent an open letter to Congress imploring them to “make sure” aviation workers are “paid for the job they do.”

Yesterday, long security wait times delayed 12,825 flights entering or leaving the U.S., according to the aviation company FlightAware. There were 4,860 cancellations on U.S. routes, with the “Big Four” domestic carriers — American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines — each facing delays on over 40 percent of their flights.

Worse still, travelers can no longer rely on the TSA’s website for details on security wait times, as the Department of Homeland Security stopped updating it in February due to the shutdown. At Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International, the world’s busiest airport, security wait times are over an hour and a half long.

READ MORE:

Minors Can Easily Access Transgender Drugs Online, Watchdog Warns

Senate Advances Bill That Would Ban Institutional Investors From Buying Single-Family Homes

Gas Prices Surge as US–Israel War With Iran Rattles Global Oil Markets