Airports across the country could be forced to close entirely if the partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown continues hemorrhaging TSA staff, the agency's acting deputy administrator warned Tuesday. Three hundred sixty-six Transportation Security Administration workers have already quit, and the ones who remain are working without pay.
Acting Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl did not mince words about where things stand.
Frankly, there's not much else we can do. As the weeks continue, if this continues, it's not hyperbole to suggest that we may have to quite literally shut down airports, particularly smaller ones, if call-out rates go up.
Security lines at some airports have ballooned to three and four hours. Callouts spiked over 50% in Houston on Sunday and Monday, with Atlanta and New Orleans each seeing increases above 30%. TSA workers missed their first full paycheck on Friday after receiving only partial pay at the end of February. The shutdown began on February 14, and the Senate returned Tuesday with no vote scheduled to end it.
The core dysfunction here is legislative, not operational. DHS funding lapsed because Congress could not reach agreement, and the agency that screens every commercial air traveler in America became collateral damage. TSA officers are the definition of essential workers. They show up, they stand on their feet for hours, and they are the last line between the traveling public and a security catastrophe. Asking them to do it for free has a predictable shelf life.
Stahl put the staffing reality plainly: "We're fully stretched." And then: "A lot of these officers can't afford to come in."
That is not a labor dispute. That is math. Rent is due whether Congress funds DHS or not.
DHS itself issued a statement calling for TSA funding to be "restored immediately," noting that every agent who walks away leaves a hole that takes four to six months to fill.
This loss compounds TSA's ability to meet passenger demand, as each new TSO replacement requires 4-6 months to be trained and certified, leaving critical gaps in staffing.
So even if funding resumes tomorrow, the damage is already baked in, The U.S. Sun reported. Those 366 agents are gone. Their replacements are months away from standing at a checkpoint.
What makes this particularly galling is the political gamesmanship driving the impasse. A proposal circulated to fund DHS agencies while deliberately excluding ICE and Customs and Border Protection. That is not a serious funding plan. That is a political statement dressed up as legislation, designed to starve border enforcement while claiming to care about airport security.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson identified the strategy for what it is: "defund the police."
He is not wrong. Selectively funding the parts of DHS that poll well while zeroing out immigration enforcement is not compromise. It is the same ideological project that progressive cities tried with local police departments, repackaged for a federal audience. The result there was rising crime. The result here would be open borders with functioning metal detectors. That is not a trade any serious person should accept.
If Congress wants TSA funded, fund DHS. The whole thing. The agency exists as a unit for a reason. Cherry-picking which components deserve to operate is a backdoor policy fight masquerading as fiscal responsibility.
Perhaps the most revealing detail in this entire episode is what airports themselves have resorted to. Denver International Airport posted a request asking the public to donate $10 and $20 grocery store and gas gift cards to support TSA employees working without pay. They even specified: "Visa gift cards cannot be accepted."
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport went further, soliciting non-perishable food, hygiene items, and diapers at the SEA Conference Center between 8am and 4pm.
Read that again. Major American airports are running food drives for federal employees responsible for national security. Democratic Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper acknowledged the scene:
People are making donations to people at the airport to help them get through while they're not being paid. There's a great deal of concern.
The concern is warranted. The spectacle is an indictment of everyone in Washington who let it reach this point.
Conservatives have long argued that the federal government does too many things poorly rather than a few things well. Airport security screening is one of the things it must do. Period. Whatever your position on the size of the federal workforce, on DOGE-style efficiency reviews, on trimming bureaucratic bloat, the people physically standing between a passenger terminal and a threat are not the fat to cut. They are the muscle.
The longer this continues, the worse the compounding damage becomes. Every agent who quits today is a checkpoint that runs slower six months from now. Every callout this week is a family that misses a flight, a business trip that doesn't happen, an economy that absorbs another friction cost because elected officials cannot perform their most basic function: funding the government they already authorized.
The Senate came back Tuesday. No vote was scheduled. Airports are collecting diapers for the people keeping them safe.
That tells you everything about where Washington's priorities actually are.
