Washington dysfunction is no longer just a political talking point—it’s threatening to bring America’s airports to a screeching halt.
In a stark warning that should rattle every traveler ahead of spring break, Acting Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl revealed that the nation’s air travel system is being pushed to the edge by the ongoing Department of Homeland Security funding standoff.
Speaking Tuesday on Fox News with co-host Ainsley Earhardt, Stahl didn’t mince words about the consequences of the partial government shutdown that began Feb. 14. TSA officers—America’s frontline airport security—have been working without pay for weeks, and the cracks are rapidly widening.
Already, 366 TSA agents have walked off the job. Even more alarming, absentee rates are surging as workers struggle to justify showing up without a paycheck.
Earhardt pressed Stahl on whether desperate measures—like recalling retired personnel—might be needed to handle the looming spring break travel rush.
“Are you going to call in people that have been retired?” she asked. “How are we going to remedy this problem if we don’t get the government [DHS] funded?”
Stahl’s response painted a grim picture of a system already stretched beyond its limits. “We’re doing absolutely everything we can,” he said, before delivering a sobering reality check:
“We have a National Deployment Office force. We have fully depleted that. At this point, we’re fully stretched. Frankly, there’s not much else we can do. As the weeks continue, if this continues, it’s not hyperbole to suggest that we may have to quite literally shut down airports, particularly smaller ones, if callout rates go up and we can’t — a lot of the officers can’t afford to come in.”
Stahl drove the point home with an example of the human toll behind the political stalemate:
“I talked to one officer this week who is a single mother. She has a special needs child. She can’t afford to pay for her special needs child’s child care. Again, I believe it’s frankly unconscionable that we have Senate Democrats that are playing, that are holding our folks’ financial livelihood hostage over political games, political partisanship, so we really need to get back to normal order.”
According to Stahl, TSA workers are now facing “dire financial straits,” with many living paycheck to paycheck—and now, no paycheck at all.
“These are individuals living, like many Americans, paycheck to paycheck,” he explained. “This is the third shutdown over the past six months. We have individuals sleeping in their cars. Some individuals also are drawing blood to afford to pay for gas to get to work. Again, these are dire impacts to our officers financially.”
The long-term consequences could be even worse. Stahl warned that the agency is already seeing the fallout in staffing:
“This will have knockdown effects also long term to attrition and recruitment. We saw an uptick of 25 percent attrition after the last shutdown. This will continue to worsen, not get better, if we don’t get a resumption of normal operations, DHS funded and money back into our TSA officers’ pockets.”
