By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) – Long lines were reported at major airports on Wednesday as the Transportation Security Administration said the number of airport security officers quitting had jumped to more than 480 since the mid-February start of a partial government shutdown.
Ha McNeill, the senior official at the Transportation Security Administration, told a U.S. House committee that the dispute that has forced 50,000 TSA officers to work without pay was leading to major strains and the longest lines in the agency’s history. She reiterated that the TSA could be forced to close smaller airports if staffing issues worsened.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he could deploy National Guard troops to airports to address security needs.
Senate Republicans and Democrats continue to debate a proposal that would allow funding to resume for TSA and other Department of Homeland Security agencies.
McNeill noted that 1,110 TSA officers quit during the 2025 shutdown.
TSA is grappling with the school spring break travel surge and experiencing about 5% higher travel volume than last year. Absences have spiked to more than 10% in recent days, which has led to passengers waiting for more than four hours to get through security checkpoints at some airports.
McNeill said some TSA agents were “sleeping in their cars at airports to save gas money, selling their blood and plasma, and taking on second and third jobs to make ends meet, all while expected to perform at the highest level when in uniform to protect the traveling public.”
McNeill expressed concern that if more TSA workers quit it may be hard to handle the major traffic expected during the upcoming soccer World Cup.
Democrats have held up funding for DHS while demanding a change in rules governing its immigration operations, after agents in Minneapolis shot and killed U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Republicans have rejected Democratic proposals to fund TSA while negotiating over reforms for how Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents operate.
Hundreds of U.S. immigration agents and Homeland Security Investigations officers began deploying at 14 U.S. airports on Monday to aid security screening, including at some airports where wait times have topped three or four hours. DHS said on Tuesday 11.1% of TSA officers nationally, or 3,160, did not show up for work.
ICE and other law enforcement personnel at DHS are getting paid during the shutdown.
On Tuesday, more than 30% of TSA workers were absent at airports in New York, Houston, Atlanta and New Orleans, DHS said.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Berkrot)
