Some of the busiest airports in the United States are continuing to ask travelers to arrive hours before their departure time in order to get through security lines at airports as TSA workers are set to get a paycheck.
Baltimore-Washington International Airport officials posted Sunday morning that checkpoint wait times have improved from Saturday but “remain longer than normal.”
They continue to recommend that passengers hours ahead of their flight, along with airports such as Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia and LaGuardia Airport in New York City.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a post on X Saturday evening that more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were also being deployed to BWI to assist at TSA security checkpoints to “speed up the clearance process for passengers — not immigration enforcement.”
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to pay Transportation Security Administration officers aimed at alleviating long security lines.
The order on Friday instructed the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSA officers immediately, although it’s unclear when the impact of that move will start to be felt at airports.
The signing came at a busy travel time of the year, with spring breaks at school districts and colleges and the upcoming Passover and Easter holidays.
White House border czar Tom Homan told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that he hopes Transportation Security Administration agents will be paid by Monday or Tuesday, as a partial government shutdown continues to wreak havoc on the nation’s airports.
“It’s good news because these TSA officers are struggling,” Homan said. “They can’t feed their families or pay their rent. Your heart goes out to them because they’re sitting there right now, working very hard and not being paid by members of the Congress who are on vacation and getting paid. It’s ridiculous.”
Asked if the deployment of ICE agents at airports will end once TSA officers get paid, Homan said that depends upon how many TSA employees would be returning to work.
“God bless men and women of ICE,” Homan said. “They’re doing a job. They’re plugging those holes. They’re keeping the security of the airport at a high level.”
“Every place we send ICE officers, the lines have decreased,” Homan said.
Caleb Harmon-Marshall, a former TSA officer who runs a travel newsletter called Gate Access, said the staffing crisis won’t improve significantly until officers are confident that they won’t be subjected to more skipped paychecks.
“If it’s only for a pay period, that’s not enough to bring them back,” Harmon-Marshall said. “It has to be an extended pay for them to come back or want to stay there.”
