The Department of Homeland Security is suspending two popular programs Sunday that allow some travelers to move more quickly through airport security because of the shutdown of much of the agency, according to a DHS spokesperson.
The department is pausing its TSA PreCheck and Global Entry programs — one of several emergency measures the agency said it is taking to redirect staffing more than a week after Congress did not vote to send more money to the agency. DHS Secretary Kristi L. Noem said in a statement that the agency is “making tough but necessary workforce and resource decisions” and prioritizing the “general traveling population” at airports and ports of entry.
“This is the third time that Democrat politicians have shut down this department during the 119th Congress,” Noem said in a statement. “Shutdowns have serious real world consequences, not just for the men and women of DHS and their families who go without a paycheck, but it endangers national security.”
Democrats in Congress demanded Republicans agree to impose new restrictions on DHS after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renée Good, last month in Minneapolis. The White House negotiated with Democrats, but the two sides did not reach a deal before DHS funding ran out on Feb. 14.
Among the changes the agency is making starting Sunday is suspending airport police escorts for members of Congress and other expedited services, the agency said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will also halt all “non-disaster related response to prioritize disasters,” Noem said, noting the upcoming winter storm this weekend. The Washington Post previously reported that DHS halted almost all travel amid the standoff over the agency’s funding. DHS is now requiring approval for all FEMA travel, including for disaster relief.
Democrats have insisted that federal agents wear body cameras and don’t wear masks, get judicial warrants before raiding people’s homes, stop raids on “sensitive sites” such as churches and schools, and adhere to a new code of conduct similar to those of state and local police, among other demands.
Congress has been gone from Washington for the past week on a prescheduled recess. Democratic leaders have been negotiating with White House officials over the break and sent a counteroffer Monday, according to a spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York).
The federal government has endured two other shutdowns in recent months, including one that lasted 43 days in the fall because of an impasse over expiring subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans. Much of the government briefly shut down several weeks ago before Congress passed legislation to reopen it.
This shutdown is narrower: Lawmakers have funded every department except DHS, limiting the impact to an estimated 13 percent of the civilian federal workforce.
The agencies within DHS to which Democrats are demanding changes — Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — will probably be able to continue their operations uninterrupted because of an influx of money from the Republican tax and spending law that President Donald Trump signed last year. DHS received $170 billion, including $75 billion for ICE.
But other agencies, like FEMA and the Transportation Security Administration, are more vulnerable to the funding lapse. According to DHS’s September shutdown plan, 91 percent of its employees would continue to work without pay. The first missed paycheck would be March 3.
Republicans have warned that failing to fund DHS would hinder its operations, even as Trump’s campaign to detain and deport undocumented immigrants continues.
“If the Department of Homeland Security is defunded, the pain will extend throughout the country,” Sen. John Barrasso (Wyoming), the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, said on the Senate floor before the shutdown started.
Democrats have countered that they did not want to disrupt the operations of TSA and other agencies that do not play a role in immigration enforcement. But Democrats see federal agents’ aggressive tactics as such a threat that they were willing to block funding for the entire department until Republicans agree to the new restrictions they’ve demanded.
“My wish is for my Republican colleagues to be just as upset as they are about what is going to happen next week at TSA or at FEMA as for the children that are being traumatized right now in this country, who are being thrown in what’s called the ‘baby jail’ outside of San Antonio — the lives that are fundamentally changed by an immigration policy that is out of control,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) said on the Senate floor this month.
Brianna Sacks contributed to this report.
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