More than 400 TSA officers have quit since shutdown began
More than 400 Transportation Security Administration employees have resigned since the partial government shutdown that began Feb. 14 left them working without pay, the Department of Homeland Security said.
Funding for DHS has been suspended due to Democrats’ demands for reforms to Immigration, Customs and Border Protection, following alleged abuses and the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.
There was also a 10% national TSA response rate for more than half the days last week, Lauren Bis, DHS acting assistant secretary for public affairs, said Saturday in response to questions.
TSA, which reports to DHS, has approximately 65,000 employees. Of these, 50,000 are front-line officers responsible for security at the country’s airports.
Among TSA agents who resigned during the shutdown, nearly half have more than three years of experience and a third more than five years, the agency said.
Some TSA workers have expressed fears about unpaid bills and worse, not getting paid. Anthony Riley, 58, a married father of three who has been working without pay for weeks, told NBC News earlier this month that he was at risk of eviction and homelessness.
There have been increased wait times – and frustration – at airports due to the closure.
The highest response rate nationwide during the shutdown was Friday, at 10.22 percent, a DHS spokesperson said.
New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport had a response rate of 29.5% Friday, and Houston Intercontinental Airport had a rate of 36.6% the same day, the spokesperson said.
Houston Hobby Airport had a response rate of 51.5% as of Friday, according to DHS.
In the U.S. Senate on Saturday, a Democratic bill to fund only TSA workers, but not the rest of DHS, failed to secure the 60 votes needed to advance. The 41-49 vote fell along partisan lines.
Senate Democrats on Friday rejected Republican efforts to pass a bill to fully fund DHS.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both Democrats from New York, have called for reforms within ICE.
In February, they outlined reforms they want to see, including an end to what they call indiscriminate arrests, a ban on ICE agents wearing masks and an end to what they call racial profiling by the agency.
The administration blamed Democrats for the shutdown, calling it a “Democratic DHS shutdown.”
President Donald Trump, in an article on Truth Social, threatened to send ICE to airports.
Funding for ICE, which is part of DHS, was not interrupted during the shutdown. That agency received $75 billion in additional funding through the “big, beautiful bill,” the president’s major legislative package that was passed and signed into law last year.
Joe Smollen, who was taking off from Newark Liberty International Airport for San Diego on Saturday, said he had gone to the airport a few hours earlier, just in case. He said he hoped Congress would reach an agreement.
“I think it’s unfair for citizens to have to put up with this,” Smollen said.
“And these poor people that work here, they are very, very diligent in what they do, we need them,” Smollen said. “And it’s unfair that they are being targeted in this way.”
