Since Feb. 14, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been effectively “shut down” due to Congress failing to pass a budget. This shutdown has heavily impacted the US because of the critical roles of the agency being unavailable. According to the DHS official website, they are responsible for the domestic security of the US, including immigration, terrorism, customs, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agency. In particular, the lack of funding for TSA agents has caused issues for everyday people.
According to the TSA official website, the agency was created in response to 9/11, and since then has been in charge of the security for aviation and other modes of transportation. Without government funding, TSA employees do not get paid. Despite this, according to an oversight hearing discussing potential shutdown impacts, 95 percent of TSA employees are deemed essential, meaning they have to work during the shutdown.
Since the shutdown, travelers in busy airports, such as John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), posted videos of long TSA lines. There were still TSA employees working, but according to an NPR article published on March 25, employees were “calling out of work at rates of 40% to 50%.”
To resolve the long TSA lines, Trump signed an executive order on March 27 that called for TSA employees to receive “compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them” if not for the shutdown. Since signing the order, people and news sources have been reporting that lines have shortened. However, one Instagram user, Allie Temple, posted a reel of themself arriving at Charlotte Douglas International Airport at 5:35 a.m. on a Friday to a TSA line “weaving across the entire terminal.”
The vast majority of DHS employees, not just TSA, are not being paid, leading to Trump signing another executive order on April 3, stating that all TSA employees should receive pay “accrued to them if not for the…shutdown.” Because of the huge impact of the DHS shutdown, Republicans and Democrats have been blaming one another for prolonging the shutdown. In his executive orders, Trump referred to the shutdown as “Democrat-led.” On the other hand, Jack Reed, a Democratic senator for Rhode Island, called the shutdown the “GOP’s shutdown.” Despite the debate on who is responsible, Madison Hicks, a Salem student, commented that “regardless of anything else, we must remember the sole cause of America’s political instability, and that sole cause is Donald Trump,” highlighting people’s frustration with the current state of US politics.
