Transportation Security Administration employees say they are at a \u201cbreaking point\u201d with TSA staff preparing to miss a third paycheck this week, as employee unions again push for legislation that would ensure federal workers get paid during a shutdown.<\/p>\n
The ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown stretched to its 39th day on Tuesday. More than 400 TSA employees have left the agency during the shutdown, while thousands more have started calling out of work, leading to long security screening lines at some airports.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has now deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to airports to nominally help bolster TSA\u2019s ranks. ICE agents are being paid during the shutdown due to funding the agency received in last year\u2019s tax and reconciliation bill.<\/p>\n
But union representatives for TSA\u2019s transportation security officers say ICE has done little to help with the situation.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThat\u2019s like giving a person dying of pneumonia a teaspoon of cough syrup,\u201d Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said during a press call today. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t address the problem, and it\u2019s not going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnny Jones, the secretary-treasurer of AFGE\u2019s TSA Council 100, called the deployment of ICE officers \u201ca straight-up distraction\u201d to how TSA officers are going to work without being paid. TSA employees and many other DHS staff will miss a third paycheck of the shutdown on Friday, unless lawmakers quickly reach a funding deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ICE officers are being paid,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThis is kind of an insult to the employees. I\u2019ve heard all kinds of negatory feedback in regards to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aaron Barker, president of AFGE Local 554, which represents TSOs in Georgia, pointed to the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to disband TSA union rights<\/a> and potentially shift to more privatized airport security screening.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt has always been about privatization,\u201d Barker said. \u201cI believe this is a play to try to move in that direction, and I just don\u2019t think that this is going to end well with ICE going into the airports.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Barker said TSA is likely to see more attrition in the coming weeks, while the agency may have a difficult time recruiting given the difficulties the workforce has faced over the past year.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be hard to recruit people to come to TSA, and you may even still see more officers leave after this,\u201d Barker said. \u201cOctober is six months away, and we may be facing this same shutdown fiasco again. No one wants to continue to live their life with this amount of uncertainty and undue stress to no fault of their own.\u201d<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n Many TSA employees had just financially recovered from last fall\u2019s record-long government shutdown when the DHS lapse in appropriations began in February. With bills adding up, some employees have turned to selling plasma, according to Mac Johnson, executive vice president of AFGE TSA Council 100.<\/p>\n Jones noted TSA employees have spent roughly half of fiscal 2026 \u2013 which began Oct. 1 \u2013 under a government shutdown.<\/p>\n \u201cMost employees live paycheck to paycheck, so they\u2019ve missed these paychecks for the last month and a half, and then before it was a month and a half again, so this is unsustainable,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n Sean Root, executive secretary of AFGE Local 1260, which covers airports in California, California, Nevada and Arizona, said many TSA employees exhausted their emergency funds during last year\u2019s shutdown. He said TSA employees appreciate the donations from local communities, but noted even those have started drying up.<\/p>\n \u201cThey helped us out a ton during the last shutdown, and it\u2019s not the community\u2019s responsibility to make sure that people can get to work for their jobs,\u201d Root said. \u201cWe have another round of rent and mortgages coming up. And these landlords, they don\u2019t want to hear, \u2018We\u2019ll pay you later.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s only so much that these people can take until there\u2019s a breaking point, and I think we\u2019re at that breaking point,\u201d Root added.<\/p>\n