TSA crisis grows, raising pressure on lawmakers to end DHS shutdown

Congress is facing mounting pressure to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and end the partial government shutdown as flight delays and long security lines are worsening at airports nationwide.

President Trump said this past weekend he would deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to airports to help manage the strain, a move that appeared aimed at pressuring Democrats to drop their demands for reforms and agree to fund the DHS. 

But the announcement has drawn sharp pushback from congressional Democrats, and questions remain about what role the officers will play in the days ahead.

In floor remarks on Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned the deployment of ICE at airports, expressing concern about ICE officers’ apparent lack of training in airport security screening.

“This is really disturbing,” Schumer said. “ICE agents who are untrained and have caused problems everywhere they’ve gone lurking at our airports. That’s asking for trouble, and it will certainly make the chaos at the airports even worse.”

Schumer pointed to remarks from border czar Tom Homan, who said earlier Sunday he was “working on the plan” with acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill, adding, “We’ll have a plan by the end of today.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) expressed similar concerns about ICE officers’ behavior in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

“The last thing that the American people need are for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize or, in some instances, kill them,” Jeffries said. 

“We have already seen how ICE conducts itself,” he added.

The DHS has been shut down for more than a month, with Democrats refusing to fund the department without immigration enforcement changes and Republicans rejecting those demands.  

But the chaos plaguing air hubs throughout the country has injected stalled negotiations with newfound momentum, as lawmakers begin to feel the pressure from their constituents to pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers before they leave Washington on Friday for a two-week Easter recess.

What began earlier this month as long security lines at a handful of airports has spread to an increasing number of cities, as fewer TSA workers report to work and spring break travel ramps up.

TSA officers missed their first full paycheck on March 13 and expect to be paid for the time once the shutdown ends. But, in the meantime, many are seeking out secondary sources of income to cover their expenses until funding is restored, leading to an increase in absences. 

Acting DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told The Hill Monday that more than 400 TSA officers have quit their jobs since the partial government shutdown began on Feb. 14.

“This pointless, reckless shutdown of our homeland security workforce has caused more than 400 TSA officers to quit and thousands to call out from work because they are not able to afford gas, childcare, food, or rent,” Bis said in a statement.

Bis said 11.76 percent of TSA officers — more than 3,450 employees — called out from work on Sunday, the highest share reported during the shutdown. 

Many of the nation’s largest airports reported even higher call-out rates on Sunday, including 42.3 percent at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, 41.5 percent at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, 39.1 percent at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, 38.1 percent at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, 37.4 percent at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, 24.7 percent at Pittsburgh International Airport, 24.2 percent at Philadelphia International Airport, 21.7 percent at LaGuardia Airport in New York and 20.3 percent at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

The viral images of security lines at airports are also adding to pressure on lawmakers to reach a deal to fund the DHS.

Over the weekend, photos from New York City-area airports showed security lines snaking through terminals and into parking areas. On Monday, John F. Kennedy International Airport announced it would no longer report its wait times online, saying waits “may be significantly longer than normal” and that travelers should allow “significantly more time” ahead of their flights.

At some air travel hubs, including Atlanta’s airport, travelers were advised to arrive at least four hours before their scheduled departures. 

At the same time, key questions remained about what ICE’s presence at those airports would look like.

Already on Monday, ICE agents were spotted at airports around the country. Various news outlets reported their presence at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Reuters also reported that ICE and Homeland Security Investigations officers were slated to be deployed at 14 large airports, including in New Orleans, Cleveland, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Fort Myers, Fla, and at LaGuardia, which was temporarily closed Monday after an Air Canada crash killed two pilots.

Homan said Sunday he did not expect the immigration officers to be directly involved in security screening measures at airports, saying, “I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine because we’re not trained in that.”

“But there are certain parts of security that TSA is doing that we can move them off those jobs and put them in the specialized jobs to help move those lines,” he added, noting in a separate interview that ICE officers would relieve TSA officers from duties like guarding exits, so they can focus on screening passengers. 

But Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy appeared to contradict Homan’s remarks, telling ABC News that ICE officers would assist in security screening operations at airports.

“They run those same type of security machines at the southern border, right?” Duffy said Sunday. “Packages come through or people come through. They run similar assets.”

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