President Donald Trump said he will sign an order to pay airport security workers, as air travellers across the US face hours-long queues during a partial government shutdown.
Trump wrote in a social media post that he was instructing the Department of Homeland Security “to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation”, without providing details.
Hundreds of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents have quit since the shutdown began in February. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the TSA, has been unfunded since February after Congress failed to reach a budget agreement. This triggered a partial government shutdown.
TSA agents are considered essential workers and are required to work without immediate pay during a federal shutdown. Their salaries are dependent on congressional appropriations, which are tied to a funding agreement in the DHS budget.
Democrats are refusing to agree to a funding deal without reforms to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. With fewer TSA officers at airport security checkpoints, wait times have surged nationwide. Compounding the strain, more than 450 TSA workers have quit since the partial shutdown began. The TSA has around 50,000 agents who screen passengers.
Travellers are experiencing the longest wait times ever in the TSA’s 24-year history, the agency’s acting chief, Ha Nguyen McNeill, told a congressional oversight committee on Wednesday. Some of the worst delays were reported in Houston, where security wait times have stretched beyond four hours this week. At some major airports, queues have stretched as far as parking areas. Earlier this week, nearly 40% of the security staff at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston did not show up for work – the highest such rate in the country.
On Thursday evening, a BBC correspondent returning from honeymoon via Houston airport reported that after waiting about two hours in a winding queue across one floor, frazzled travellers went up an escalator thinking they had reached the end – only to find another long line stretching towards security.
The airport is currently operating just one-third to 50% of its TSA checkpoints, said Jim Szczesniak, director of aviation for the Houston Airport System. Major international airports like those in New York, New Jersey and Illinois are also facing significant disruptions.
