The Department of Homeland Security said on Sunday that it was suspending its T.S.A. PreCheck and Global Entry programs that allow travelers to move through airport security more quickly.
In a statement, the department said that it would pause the expedited screening programs, which are overseen by the Transportation Security Administration and Customs and Border Protection, starting on Sunday at 6 a.m. Eastern to “refocus Department personnel on the majority of travelers.”
The department also said it would suspend all courtesy and family police escorts at airports for members of Congress.
The moves are among several measures the department is taking after its funding lapsed on Feb. 14. Lawmakers have been deadlocked over a proposal to restore funding.
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said in a statement that the department was making “tough but necessary work force and resource decisions,” and accused Democrats, who have withheld their votes to continue funding the agency, of endangering national security.
Ms. Noem added that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would “halt all non-disaster related response to prioritize disasters.” The announcement came the same day as a major snowstorm was expected to hit the East Coast.
Federal assistance will not continue for “legacy disasters” during the shutdown, according to the department. The agency will only carry out activities for new or recent disasters “requiring immediate emergency action to protect lives or prevent catastrophic damage,” the department said.
Some Democratic lawmakers questioned how the suspension of the priority security screening services would help the department manage the shutdown. “T.S.A. PreCheck and Global Entry REDUCE airport lines and ease the burden on D.H.S. staff,” Representative Bennie G. Thompson, the party’s top member of the Committee on Homeland Security, said in a statement. He accused the Trump administration of “purposely punishing the American people.”
T.S.A. PreCheck allows departing travelers to use a separate — and usually much shorter — line through airport security. Global Entry speeds travelers through customs screening when they return to the United States.
By withholding their votes to fund the department, Democrats are seeking to rein in another branch of the department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, whose agents have been carrying out President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The Department of Homeland Security oversees ICE, the agency that has been under renewed scrutiny following the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
Democrats are pushing for a range of new restrictions on immigration agents, including requiring them to obtain warrants from judges to make arrests in homes, mandating that they show visible identification and prohibiting face coverings for agents. Republicans have objected to many of the demands, which they consider overly burdensome.
Although D.H.S. funding has lapsed, most of its operations are still being carried out, and department leaders have said that essential functions will continue. ICE and C.B.P. are expected to remain largely unaffected if the shutdown is not prolonged.
About 95 percent of the T.S.A.’s roughly 60,000 employees are required to work during a shutdown. But there is a risk that the shutdown could cause airport delays, and the longer the standoff lasts, the more travelers and others could feel its effects as unpaid workers begin to call in sick or don’t show up for work.
Madeleine Ngo covers immigration and economic policy for The Times.
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