By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, March 26 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is weighing executive action to pay 50,000 airport security officers, sources said on Thursday, if no deal is reached in Congress to address security staff shortages that have snarled airport traffic around the country.
Nearly 500 airport security officers have quit since the start of a partial government shutdown in February, the Homeland Security Department said, as a congressional dispute over the department’s funding forces Transportation Security Administration officers to work without pay.
Two congressional sources confirmed to Reuters that Trump is considering a variety of actions to pay airport workers, although it was unclear how long he might be able to pay TSA payrolls without a deal from Congress.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Thursday: “It is true that the White House is having discussions about a number of ideas to blunt the impact of the Democrat shutdown crisis, but no preparations or plans are currently under way. The best and easiest way to pay TSA Agents is to fund DHS.”
Democrats in Congress have held up funding for DHS while demanding a change in rules governing its immigration operations, after agents in Minneapolis shot and killed U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Republicans have rejected repeated Democratic proposals to fund TSA separately while negotiating over reforms for how Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents operate.
The TSA reiterated on Wednesday that the agency could be forced to close smaller airports if staffing issues worsened.
More than 11% of TSA officers, or 3,120 agents, did not show up for work on Wednesday, while much higher absentee rates of 30% or more were seen at New York’s JFK, Houston’s two airports, and airports in Baltimore, New Orleans and Atlanta.
Chris Sununu, CEO of airline trade group Airlines for America, on Thursday reiterated his call for Congress to quickly resolve the issue. He warned that, even if the U.S. Senate reaches a deal on DHS funding by Friday, “you’re still probably looking at a very tough weekend, because it’s not going to get finalized” immediately.
Trump has said he could deploy National Guard troops to airports to address security needs.
Senate Republicans and Democrats continue to debate a proposal that would allow funding to resume for TSA and other Department of Homeland Security agencies while keeping some immigration enforcement funding on hold.
TSA is grappling with a school spring-break travel surge that is about 5% higher in volume than last year’s. Absences have spiked above 10% in recent days, leading to hours-long delays to get through security checkpoints at some airports.
Hundreds of U.S. immigration agents and Homeland Security Investigations officers began deploying at 14 U.S. airports on Monday to aid security screening.
Some of those agents are now checking IDs with TSA equipment, guarding entrances and exits, assisting with logistics, and engaging in crowd control.
ICE and other law enforcement personnel at DHS are getting paid during the shutdown.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bill Berkrot and Edmund Klamann)
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