Hopes that chaos at U.S. airports would soon end were dashed Friday afternoon when House Republicans rejected a measure passed by their Senate counterparts to restore most funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
The US Senate had unanimously approved funds to pay TSA workers. The deal was expected to be approved by the US House of Representatives. Trump had said he wanted to quickly stop the “Chaos at the Airports,” Associated Press reported.
But Friday afternoon, Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the Senate bill, which withheld money for ICE and deportation operations, as “a joke.” He said the House would instead advance a measure to fully fund the agency. The intraparty feud is likely to extend a partial shutdown of the agency that has left federal workers without paychecks and travelers facing long lines at airports
US Congress has been in a 42-day stalemate that has seen TSA workers go unpaid. Many have called in sick, leading to jammed airports, disrupted travel and financial hardship on workers, AP reported. Some US airports have been asking customers to pitch in with credit card gift cards, while other airports brought in food trucks to feed hungry TSA workers.
FOX News reports multiple airports are experiencing greater than 40% callout rates of TSA workers and nearly 500 of the agency's nearly 50,000 transportation security officers have quit during the shutdown. Nationwide on Wednesday, more than 11% of the TSA employees on the schedule missed work.
“This is a dire situation,” acting TSA administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said at a House of Representatives hearing on 25MAR.
The deal the Senate rejected did not include funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has become a huge political issue in the States. US Customs would have been funded, but Border Protection would not have been.
