Airport security is unraveling as unpaid TSA officers abandon their posts. Six weeks without paychecks have pushed workers earning an average of $50,000 a year to a breaking point, with 480 quitting since the shutdown began. The result is five-hour security waits at hubs like Houston and New York.
On *The Daily*, Karin Demirjian argued the collapse was inevitable once financial survival eclipsed government service. Workers chose immediate gas money over hypothetical future pay. The resulting 40% call-out rate has trapped even National Transportation Safety Board investigators in the security lines they’re meant to bypass, crippling the government’s own response capacity.
Karin Demirjian, The Daily:
- You can't shut down the Department of Homeland Security indefinitely without starting to see failures happen in the system.
- This is a workforce of 50,000 people who have been working unpaid for the last month and a half.
The shutdown’s irony is sharp: ICE agents, who have a dedicated “rainy day” fund and are central to the political stalemate, are being paid to hand out water in airports. Meanwhile, the TSA screeners doing the actual work remain unpaid. Demirjian noted these deployments are largely optics, as ICE agents lack training to operate metal detectors or screen baggage.
The damage is structural. Replacing a single TSA officer requires four to six months of training. Even if the shutdown ended today, the personnel deficit ensures travel chaos will persist through the next peak season. The shutdown has moved from a Washington stalemate to a systemic collapse at the gate.
Karin Demirjian, The Daily:
- The shutdown that is supposed to be about ICE does not actually end up hurting ICE.
- The people that end up getting hurt, the TSA workers, then end up getting supposedly bailed out, but maybe not really, by ICE.
