Deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports has done nothing to shorten security lines, federal data and union officials say.
As the Department of Homeland Security shutdown enters its seventh week, callout rates among Transportation Security Administration officers have held steady at around 11% since the administration sent hundreds of ICE agents to airports in Atlanta, New York, Chicago and elsewhere. At some airports, absences have topped 40%. In New York and Houston, security lines still snake outside terminal doors, forcing travelers to arrive hours early and wait in the open air just to make their flights.
The numbers undercut the administration’s central argument for the deployment — and land amid a broader crisis at the department overseeing airport security. Border czar Tom Homan has said ICE agents would free up TSA officers to focus on screening passengers by covering entrances and exits. But nearly 500 TSA officers have quit since the shutdown began according to DHS Acting Secretary Lauren Bis, and close to 61,000 more are working without pay — attrition and financial strain that no redeployment of immigration agents can offset.
Union officials say the fundamental problem is training. TSA officers require four to six months of certification before they can screen passengers at checkpoints — a timeline that cannot be compressed.
“At the end of the day, they don’t have the skill set that we have in order to process people in a safe manner and get them on their way,” AFGE Local 554 steward George Borek told MS NOW. “So unless you’re gonna, you know, pull a rabbit out of the hat overnight, in 24 hours, get people trained, I don’t think that’s going to solve the issue or solve the problem.”
The human toll is becoming impossible to ignore. Testifying on Wednesday before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said some officers are sleeping in their cars, donating plasma and taking on second and third jobs to pay their bills. She warned that if callout rates remain high, smaller airports may be forced to close. “This level of disruption is unprecedented and unacceptable, and significantly undermines the security of U.S. transportation systems,” McNeill said. TSA agents are set to miss a second full paycheck on Friday.
Peggy Helman is a desk associate at MS NOW. Recommended
Arielle Hixson contributed to this article.
