TSA officers just pawns in bigger game, Atlanta airport passengers say
ATLANTA — Lines for security at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport remain long Monday afternoon. The wait is estimated to be around two hours, but airport officials have stopped displaying the wait time on screens in the airport or updating their online tracker. On the website, officials gave a blanket four hour wait expectancy, and said passengers should plan accordingly.
It's the first day Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been deployed at major airports to assist TSA officers. The officers have now worked without pay for more than a month, and many are calling out of their shifts leaving checkpoints severely understaffed. TSA PreCheck and Clear lines have periods where they are open, but other times the expedited lines are shut down as the resources are consolidated.
For the most part, the lines inside the airport were moving quickly about 1 p.m. as they wound through both the north and south sides of the terminal, the south usually dedicated solely to Delta flights as the airline is headquartered in Atlanta.
The mood inside the airport remains chaotic, but when USA TODAY spoke to passengers in line, they sympathized with TSA officers, and many said they understood and supported the officers who called out of their shifts. They also didn't blame one political party or the other, but rather the political system as a whole.
Here's what they had to say.
TSA officers are essential workers
"I would say we got here because I believe that we're failing to pay certain people, so once the house get their affairs in order, then we should be beyond this," said Ronnie Lee Taylor, a San Diego native who was in Atlanta for a holiday. "Probably certain things that's going toward security, like TSA, those funds should hit immediately, because people gotta work. They gotta be paid."
His message was echoed by other passengers who said TSA officers should be considered essential workers. DHS and ICE agents are being paid for their hours working in airports while TSA officers are not.
"Personally, I would be frustrated if I was the one not being paid. You tell me I'm an essential employee, but then you don't tell me I'm essentially paid. So I think we should be changing laws that say if you're designated essential, then politicians can't touch your pay," Darren Muise, an Atlanta native, said. Muise was traveling to Charlotte, North Carolina, and said if TSA lines had been much longer, he would have just gotten back in the car and driven the 3 hours and 45 minutes to Charlotte.
"It would be difficult for me to just arbitrarily show up and say, well, you'll get back pay, but you're not going to get paid. I have bills to pay. I've got to get food on the table. Yeah, I support them," Muise said.
Aric Skjelstad, from Portland, Oregon, agreed TSA agents should be paid for their time at work, but wanted lawmakers in Congress to "stay the course."
"How we got here is politics, pure politics. Both sides lie," Skjelstad said. "Go back to where they were at. Pay the people like they should."
TSA officers are pawns in bigger political game
Maddox Gates, a former Atlanta resident who now lives in New York and was back in the city for a debate tournament, said while the current shutdown is frustrating, it's part of a much larger issue.
"I kind of think structural issues that are latent within the system in terms of letting bureaucratic oversights get in the way of like, the way that it impacts people on the ground level," Gates said. "We have seen that the TSA and the ATC have been underfunded for quite a long time... And I think what you see in terms of LaGuardia right now and the loss of life of those pilots is kind of just an unfortunate oversight of what it looks like when human life kind of gets bogged down for the efficiencies of politics."
Gates referenced a plane collision at LaGuardia Airport in New York City late Sunday. Two pilots died when an Air Canada flight collided with a fire truck on the runway.
Other passengers said at the end of the day, TSA officers were hostages in a debate much larger than just airport security.
"Why is TSA held hostage for a budget which has to be funded? We all work in corporate, you have a budget allocated. It goes to it. Why should someone make a different decision? This is critical infrastructure for us," Shubhakar Gopal, traveling from San Francisco with a stop in Atlanta before heading to Orlando, said. "Personally, I feel they should never hold hostage critical infrastructure services."
Who is to blame for extended shutdown?
The partial government shutdown started on Feb. 14 when federal funding for DHS lapsed.
DHS funding includes operational costs for agencies including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Coast Guard.
Democrats have said they would not support a new funding bill that includes funding for ICE with no changes to current policy following the death of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis at the hands of ICE agents and what they argued was a lack of oversight. Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was removed from her post following hearings about ICE transparency and policy.
While they have not supported a fully funded bill that includes ICE, Democrats have proposed multiple funding options that would fund TSA along with other agencies while omitting ICE funding as Congress works out changes to the agency.
" They've got to get serious ," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, told CNBC. "The key issues of warrants when you bust in someone's house, the key issues of identity of police, no masks, they (Republicans) haven't budged on those, they've got to get serious."
Irene Wright is the Atlanta Connect reporter with USA Today’s Deep South Connect team. Find her on X @IreneEWright or email her at ismith@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Atlanta passengers say TSA officers being used as pawns in game
