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\n Photo: Spencer Platt\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a bad time to be a Transportation Security Officer at La Guardia. A fatal crash closed the airport Monday morning, leaving travelers with canceled flights and winding, hourslong security lines \u2014 which only compounded the challenges of week five of a government shutdown that has forced TSA officers to show up to work without pay with many callouts and some agents even quitting. (This is the third shutdown in less than a year.) Oh, and this week marked the beginning of President Trump\u2019s plan to send ICE agents to airports, including La Guardia, to \u201chelp.\u201d We talked to Kyle Pigott, a TSA officer at La Guardia and the vice-president of Local 2222, about the current madness \u2014\u00a0and what advice he has for people braving airline travel right now.<\/p>\n
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n
The sad thing is it\u2019s tough but it\u2019s not a surprise. We\u2019ve been furloughed over 90 days. That\u2019s ridiculous. Right now, I\u2019m missing two and a half checks. Some people have taken out unemployment assistance. Some people have relied on predatory loans to get by. You have to pay off your car, you have to pay your mortgage. I had to apply for food stamps a couple weeks ago. It\u2019s embarrassing as a federal employee for ten years. And I don\u2019t even have children.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re dwindling. You might be able to miss one paycheck and say, \u201cDamn.\u201d But missing two? TSA has given us nothing \u2014 no gas card, no donations. And now we have ICE coming in here.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re the reason that we\u2019re not getting paid. And now I\u2019m working next to that person. And they\u2019re getting paid to do nothing. They\u2019re not trained. It takes six months to train a Transportation Security Officer. They\u2019ve received none of that. A tweet went out and the next day they\u2019re at the airport walking around sipping coffees, holding on to their vest. They arrived on Monday, and now they\u2019re hanging out in the break room doing nothing. They\u2019re warming up their lunch. I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re hungry from \u2014 you didn\u2019t do anything! We already have Federal Air Marshal police and Port Authority police, so there\u2019s already ten armed officers at any given moment.<\/p>\n
Why do you need your vest and gun to move a line? That\u2019s weird. If police said they were going to come in and help you move a bag or a tray, I don\u2019t think they\u2019d come in riot gear. It\u2019s gonna make anybody feel uncomfortable. Don\u2019t you guys have ICE T-shirts? Don\u2019t they have ICE polos?<\/p>\n
There were a lot of cancellations, and flights were pushed to the next day. Nobody got sent home early on Monday. We still stayed there and maintained a presence. So you might be chilling on Monday, but Tuesday it was double the work. You\u2019re going to work your ass off.<\/p>\n
They were scared. I\u2019ve helped individuals leaving here who have to make a connection for a flight to Spain or China. They\u2019re like, \u201cThe news told us to be early so I pulled up at 4 a.m. and my flight is at 7 a.m.\u201d They gave it three hours, but three hours is not enough. So what can they do? I had a couple yesterday where their flight got pushed and they saw the line and they asked me where the rental-car desk was. They said they were going to rent a car and drive to Nashville. I got them through the line. I\u2019m only one person; that\u2019s my daily good deed. But we can\u2019t do that for everybody. Tuesday was one of the busiest days in a long time.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t blame the public; they\u2019ve been great. They\u2019ve tried to give us so many gift cards, but we\u2019re not allowed to take things like that.<\/p>\n
I love the first flight out, but if your\u00a0flight is at 7 a.m., then you have to come at 4 a.m. and everybody has the same idea. So you have to understand and prepare for that. Give it at least three hours.<\/p>\n
Enough of us are showing up and we have a lot of technology \u2014 eventually the line is going to get moving. If you\u2019re coming with a news camera crew at 9 or 10 a.m. and you\u2019re like, \u201cThe line\u2019s not here,\u201d it\u2019s because we\u2019ve been working on it since 4 a.m. Once you get it chugging, it\u2019s going to keep going, but you\u2019ve gotta push the boulder first. Show up at 4 a.m. when it\u2019s a standstill and the lines are going down the steps \u2014 that\u2019s when it\u2019s terrible.<\/p>\n
I would say midafternoon, like 1 or 2 p.m. That\u2019s when the majority of the staff is there.<\/p>\n
Yeah, of course. I mean, at the end of the day, what\u2019s going to happen? There\u2019s gonna be less and less people coming into work. ICE is there, but it doesn\u2019t make the line any shorter. They don\u2019t make the machines move faster.<\/p>\n
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