More than 400 Transportation Security Administration workers have quit since a partial government shutdown that began on Feb. 14 left them working without pay, the Department of Homeland Security said.
Funding was shut off to DHS over demands by Democrats for reforms at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection following alleged abuses and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.
There has also been a national callout rate of 10% at TSA on more than half the days of the last week, Lauren Bis, acting assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, said Saturday in response to questions.
TSA, which is under DHS, has around 65,000 employees. Of that number, 50,000 are front-line officers who are is responsible for security at the nation’s airports.
Of the TSA officers who quit during the shutdown, almost half have over three years of experience and a third have over five years, the agency said.
Some TSA workers have expressed fears about unpaid bills and worse because they aren’t being paid. Anthony Riley, a 58-year-old married father of three who has been working without pay for weeks, told NBC News earlier this month that he faces possible eviction and the specter of being homeless.
There have been increased wait times — and frustration — at airports due to the shutdown.
The highest nationwide callout rate during the shutdown came on Friday, at 10.22%, a DHS spokesperson said.
John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City had a callout rate of 29.5% on Friday, and Houston Intercontinental Airport had a rate of 36.6% the same day, the spokesperson said.
Houston Hobby Airport had a callout rate of 51.5% on Friday, according to DHS.
In the U.S. Senate on Saturday, a Democratic bill to fund just TSA workers but not the rest of DHS failed to get the 60 votes needed to advance. The 41-49 vote was along party lines.
On Friday, Senate Democrats voted down Republicans’ efforts to pass a bill to fully fund DHS.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both Democrats from New York, have called for reforms at ICE.
In February they outlined the reforms they want to see, which include an end to what they called indiscriminate arrests, a prohibition on ICE officers wearing masks, and an end to what they said was racial profiling by the agency.
The administration has blamed Democrats for the shutdown, calling it the “Democrat DHS shutdown.”
President Donald Trump in a post on Truth Social threatened to send ICE to airports.
Funding for ICE, which is part of DHS, has not been cut off during the shutdown. That agency received $75 billion in additional funds from the “big, beautiful bill,” the president’s major legislative package that was passed and signed into law last year.
Joe Smollen, who was flying out of Newark Liberty International Airport to San Diego on Saturday, said he went to the airport a couple of hours early just in case. He said he hopes Congress reaches a deal.
“I think it’s unfair to citizens to have to put up with it,” Smollen said.
“And these poor people who work here, they’re very, very diligent in what they do, we need them,” Smollen said. “And it’s unfair that they would be singled out like that.”
