“I can’t imagine I’m making my flight”: Travelers complain about long TSA lines as shutdown continues

Travelers at U.S. airports experiencing lengthy TSA lines have been taking to social media to complain and draw awareness to the ongoing problem.

Wait times at airports across the U.S. have increasingly been a problem since the partial government shutdown began in mid-February. TSA agents are not being paid during the shutdown, which has led to staffing issues as struggling workers call out or quit, leaving fewer TSA workers to continue screening travelers at security.

"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," TSA acting deputy administrator Adam Stahl said earlier this month.

How long are TSA wait lines?

Different airports are being impacted to different degrees, but there's no question that the shutdown is affecting travel throughout the whole of the U.S. The fact that regular travel is now overlapping with spring break is likely exacerbating things, leading to wait times lasting multiple hours just to get through security in some places.

Why aren't TSA agents being paid?

The current partial government shutdown is due to a delay on funding for a single department, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). TSA agents fall under this realm, but so do Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). 

Republicans and Democrats in Congress have continued to butt heads over ICE and CBP, with Democrats demanding reforms related to accountability and transparency, including preventing ICE agents from wearing masks. Republicans—who control both the House of Representatives and the Senate—have pushed back against these requests.

They have also refused to sign any bills that seek to fund other sections of DHS while allowing the debate over ICE and CBP to continue separately.

Chaotic travel adds ICE

Because TSA staffing issues are affecting various airports disproportionately, and due to the unpredictability of how much they will be affected on any given day, travelers have been struggling to make informed choices amidst the chaos.

The chaos is now being compounded after President Donald Trump deployed ICE agents to "help" the TSA. It isn't immediately clear how ICE is expected to actually be of any help, or whether they will simply create more chaos and unease.

If you have air travel plans coming up, make sure to plan for it to take an obscene amount of time to get through security. Or better yet, put that trip off until this whole thing is finally resolved.

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