By David Shepardson
March 24 (Reuters) – The Homeland Security Department will tell Congress on Wednesday that a funding standoff that has forced 50,000 airport security officers to go without pay has caused delays at airports and is posing major security risks.
Ha McNeill, the senior official at the Transportation Security Administration, will tell a U.S. House committee that 460 TSA officers have quit since the start of the current funding dispute after 1,110 quit during the 2025 shutdown.
TSA is grappling with the spring break travel surge and experiencing about 5% higher travel volume than last year. Absences have spiked to more than 10% in recent days, which has led to passengers waiting 4.5 hours at some airports, her written testimony seen by Reuters says.
She will cite reports of TSA agents “sleeping in their cars at airports to save gas money, selling their blood and plasma, and taking on second and third jobs to make ends meet, all while expected to perform at the highest level when in uniform to protect the traveling public.”
She will add, “Many have received eviction notices, lost their childcare, missed bill payments and been charged late fees, damaged their credit, defaulted on loans, and have been unable to even qualify for a loan to help ease the financial burden during the shutdown.”
Democrats have held up funding for DHS while demanding a change in rules governing its immigration operations, after agents in Minneapolis shot and killed U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Republicans have rejected Democratic proposals to fund TSA while negotiating over ICE reforms.
Hundreds of U.S. immigration agents and Homeland Security Investigations officers began deploying at 14 U.S. airports on Monday to aid security screening, including at some airports where wait times have topped three or four hours. DHS said on Monday nearly 11% of TSA officers nationally, or more than 3,200, did not show up for work.
ICE and other law enforcement personnel at DHS are getting paid during the shutdown.
On Monday, more than 30% of TSA workers were absent at New York JFK, Baltimore, Houston Hobby, Atlanta and New Orleans airports, DHS said. On Tuesday, ICE agents were also seen at Washington Dulles.
At New York LaGuardia, ICE officers were walking the terminal on Monday and not performing duties handled by TSA officers.
Separately, U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, on Tuesday introduced legislation to give more than 100,000 DHS employees a 10% bonus for time worked without pay since the partial government shutdown began in mid-February.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Rod Nickel and Lisa Shumaker)
