The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Friday it is taking extraordinary steps to secure pay for about 50,000 airport security workers who have not been paid since mid-February.
The move comes after absenteeism caused disruption at airports across the United States, leading to chaotic scenes and long security lines at checkpoints, Reuters reported.
“(The Transportation Security Administration) immediately began the process of paying its employees. TSA officers should begin seeing payments as early as Monday,” DHS quoted the agency as saying.
Absence of staff causes unrest
President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would take executive action to pay TSA workers and issued a memo ordering the payments to be made on Friday, Reuters reported.
The TSA said earlier Friday that nearly 12% of airport security officers did not show up for work Thursday, the most absences since mid-February.
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Serious disruptions were reported at a number of major airports on Thursday, with security lines stretching for several hours or longer, and similar scenes were witnessed again on Friday.
The Transportation Security Administration said more than 3,450 officers did not report for duty Thursday, including more than one-third of officers at New York’s JFK and airports in Baltimore, Houston and Atlanta.
The TSA cited reports of four-hour-plus lines at airports across the country, the worst lines in the agency’s nearly 25-year history.
The situation may worsen, officials said
Airline officials also warned that staff absences and security lines could worsen this weekend unless there are concrete details on how TSA officers will be paid. Almost 500 airport security workers have quit since February.
According to Reuters, it remains unclear how long the funding will last or whether President Trump will use the funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which was approved last year as part of a massive tax and spending bill.
Why is DHS funding suspended?
The funding crisis comes as Democrats in Congress delayed funding for DHS and demanded changes to the rules governing its immigration operations after agents in Minneapolis fatally shot U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday rejected a bipartisan Senate compromise that would have ended a six-week impasse over DHS funding, the agency said.
Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress have proposed funding the TSA separately while negotiating reforms to how Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents work.
Smaller airports could be forced to close
As a result of the disruption, the TSA reiterated Wednesday that the agency could be forced to close smaller airports, especially if staffing problems continue to worsen.
Airports are dealing with an increase in travel during the school spring break, with passenger volumes up 5% on last year. The increase in demand has increased pressure on already strained security operations.
To help ease the situation, hundreds of U.S. immigration agents and Homeland Security Investigations officers began deploying to 14 U.S. airports across the country on Monday to assist with security clearances.
