House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., is hammering Democrats over the partial government shutdown as its effects begin to hit millions of travelers at airports across the country.
‘This is expected to be one of the busiest spring travel seasons on record. Over 171 million travelers are estimated to fly in the coming weeks, and they expect the agencies responsible for keeping them safe to be fully operational,’ Scalise told Fox News Digital.
‘The longer Democrats hold the Department of Homeland Security hostage, the longer they’re forcing [Transportation Security Administration (TSA)] agents to work without pay and the worse the pain will be that Democrats inflict on regular Americans.’
It comes as TSA agents, whose agency operates under DHS, are set to miss their first full paychecks next week. And with Democrats continuing to withhold the department’s funding in protest of President Donald Trump’s handling of illegal immigration, the standoff still has no clear end in sight.
Scalise’s own hometown travel hub, the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, is facing hours-long delays due to the ongoing shutdown.
The airport’s official X account warned travelers to arrive two to three hours before their scheduled departure time earlier this week due to a ‘shortage of TSA workers’ at its security checkpoints owing to ‘impacts from the federal government’s partial shutdown.’
‘The recent chaos at my airport in New Orleans, and airports across the country, is impossible to miss — wait times longer than three hours, lines stretching out to the parking lot,’ Scalise said. ‘It’s ridiculous, shameful, and it never should have happened.’
Scalise said his office was in contact with airport staff about the issue, and that they are concerned about their own welfare as the shutdown continues.
‘They’re worried about the impact the shutdown will have on TSA employees and the ability for the airport to get travelers through security and make their flights in a timely fashion,’ he said. ‘This is the third time in six months that TSA agents are being forced to worry about missing a paycheck because Washington Democrats keep using them as leverage.’
The airport in New Orleans is not the only one battling staffing issues because of the shutdown.
George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas urged travelers to arrive earlier than planned due to fewer airport security lines being open due to personnel shortages. Nearby William P. Hobby Airport asked people to arrive three hours early for domestic flights and four hours early for international flights.
The partial shutdown is in its 25th day as Democrats continue to refuse the GOP’s compromise offers on funding DHS.
Unlike last year’s 43-day government shutdown, however, roughly 97% of the federal budget has been accounted for already. In other words, all agencies but DHS are funded through the remainder of the fiscal year.
But DHS is a wide-ranging department that oversees the TSA, U.S. Coast Guard, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the U.S. Secret Service, and others.
In addition to travel delays hitting U.S. airports over TSA shortages, the shutdown’s effects have also come into sharper focus as national security threats grow in the U.S. over the Trump administration’s joint operation with Israel targeting Iran.
The House has now twice passed a bipartisan DHS funding bill, the product of bipartisan negotiations in the previous shutdown’s wake. But in the Senate, where Democrats are critical to advancing the legislation past the 60-vote filibuster threshold, progress has all but stalled.