As the Department of Homeland Security shutdown enters its seventh week, the administration has pivoted to a controversial fix: It’s deploying hundreds of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to 14 major airports to plug the gaps left by unpaid TSA officers who are calling out or quitting.
The Transportation Security Administration is facing an existential crisis.
In Houston, wait times at the screening area hit three hours this week. Atlanta and Philadelphia had to close entire checkpoints because they didn’t have enough staff. Now there’s talk of entire airports shutting down because of insufficient TSA screeners.
A looming government shutdown means the agency could lose its funding as early as this weekend, leaving 61,000 federal screeners to work without a paycheck.
