The ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security is taking a toll on thousands of workers from the Transportation Security Administration who have been working without pay.
Approximately 60,000 TSA officers who have gone over a month with partial pay began receiving their first $0 paychecks last week. Many have also expressed fear, as some of them take on additional jobs to make ends meet.
The Department of Homeland Security shut down after lawmakers failed to meet a midnight Friday deadline to fund the agency and its workforce of more than 260,000 people. The department saw its baseline funding expire after lawmakers left town for a week-long recess, but without a deal to rein in the conduct of federal immigration officers.
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Democrat lawmakers have said they need reforms cemented into law before agreeing to fund the department after two U.S. citizens were shot by immigration officers. This is the third shutdown in months, though it is more limited in scope than the other shutdowns, affecting only DHS and not other agencies.
“Who wants to go work in public service in the public sector when you’re treated like a yo-yo?” a TSA worker who asked to remain anonymous told ABC News.
Angela Grana, a TSA officer at Durango-La Plata County Airport in Colorado, told ABC News Live on Monday, the first day that TSA workers missed their checks, that the entire situation has been humiliating for her co-workers. “The stories I get are very demoralizing,” Grana, who serves as the state’s regional vice president for AFGE TSA Local 1127, said. “To go ahead and do the Uber Eats or any other kind of side job, we have to have extra permission. For now, we can’t just do it.”
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Grana added that the stress of making ends meet is getting to a lot of TSA employees. “Let me tell you, for us to be concentrating on our jobs without the hunger pains in our stomachs. It’s really difficult to do. We can’t get it wrong,” Grana said. “We have to get it right every time. We cannot miss a bag, we cannot miss a threat.”
Jill DeJanovich, a TSA officer at Harry Reid International Airport, who is also a AFGE Local 1260 Chief Administrative Point of contact in Nevada, said she is frustrated with Congress for not moving forward and ending the quagmire over funding. “Someone needs to cross the line before Congress goes on break for Easter recess,” she said.
On Monday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called on Democrats Monday to join a discharge petition that would fund all DHS agencies except for ICE. A vote on similar legislation failed earlier in the Senate. Jeffries would need at least four Republicans to sign on with all Democrats for the discharge petition to move forward.