The US government is now more than three weeks into a partial shutdown as Congress fights over an appropriations bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats want new, reasonable restrictions to make DHS agents follow the law while Republicans want to make their ICE problem go away by simply not talking about mass deportations anymore. Soon-to-be ex-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem responded by suspending the Global Entry program and briefly pausing TSA PreCheck.
Spring break season is upon us, which means a lot of people will be traveling over the next month. Since the funding fight is over how DHS spends its money, approximately 50,000 TSA agents are currently working without pay for the second time in less than six months. This has caused a staffing shortage as many TSA agents can’t afford to work for free and have either quit or are calling out sick as they turn to things like gig work to supplement their income. All of this has caused a perfect storm. At some airports, the line to get through security is three hours or more:
Travelers across the United States are encountering unusually long airport security lines as a partial federal government shutdown strains staffing at the Transportation Security Administration.
At several major airports, passengers have reported waiting hours to get through checkpoints, with some missing flights as security lines stretched into terminals and even parking areas. Airports in cities including Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans and Charlotte, North Carolina have seen wait times exceed an hour during peak periods, according to recent reports.
“Today, travelers are facing TSA lines of up to nearly 3 hours long at some major airports, causing missed flights and massive delays during peak travel,” TSA told USA TODAY in a statement. “These frontline heroes received only partial paychecks earlier this month and now face their first full missed paycheck, leading to financial hardship, absences, and crippling staffing shortages.”
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt posted on social media that “300 (TSA) officers quit” amid the funding lapse.
Airports have already begun warning travelers to expect longer wait times. At Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport, for example, travelers recently reported security lines lasting more than three hours during busy periods. Officials there advised passengers to arrive three to four hours before departure to avoid missing flights.
Travelers worried about long security lines can check real-time wait estimates before heading to the airport. TSA publishes historical and live checkpoint wait-time information on its MyTSA mobile app and on the agency’s website, where travelers can search by airport and time of day.
Travelers should be aware that some information on the TSA website isn’t being updated because of the ongoing government shutdown, the agency said in a statement on Feb. 17. Banners on both the TSA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection websites warn that, “Due to the lapse in federal funding, this website will not be actively managed.”
That’s different from the last government shutdown that ran from October to November 2025, when TSA security wait times continued to update as usual.
For now, industry groups warn that delays could worsen if the shutdown continues and staffing pressures grow during the spring travel surge. Travelers heading to the airport in the coming weeks may want to arrive earlier than usual, even if they already have expedited screening programs.
On March 11, the DHS reinstated Global Entry, so at least that’s back up and running. Still, this is all such a mess. Of course, Republicans are blaming Democrats because despite being in the majority in every branch of government, it’s easier for them to point fingers than to actually fix a problem. It’s why Noem decided to shut down those programs. She wanted to make our lives miserable and then hoped the average, uninformed voter would believe their grifting propaganda videos.
Not updating the TSA website is also another cruel detail that will (I hope) inevitably backfire on them. For better or for worse – the average American is too busy trying to make a living than to engage in their petty, terminally online politics. We had systems in place. They weren’t perfect, but instead of fixing them, Republicans decided to do what they do best, which is break them and point the finger elsewhere. I feel badly for all of the VP Harris voters who have air travel plans right now.
I’ve been trying to limit my stress so I’ve been largely unplugged recently and had forgotten about the TSA mess. I also just booked flights in April. Just another thing for me to worry about in the lead up to my trip 😩
My daughter and two grandkids are flying non-stop from Detroit to Las Vegas in two weeks for their spring break. I keep telling her to get to the airport early! I’ll be picking them up in Vegas and while I’m flexible with that, I sincerely hope there are no delays.
TSA workers are ‘heroes’ now? I feel for every federal employee right now (except for ICE/CPB agents) but we have to hold the line. We cannot have business as usual for ICE, we just cannot have masked armed thugs smashing into peoples cars & homes & shooting people. We just cannot.
A friend was in Morocco when the shutdown started. She came home to New York a few days into it with new rugs and went to declare them at Customs. The agents looked at what she was bringing in, said to her “We’re not getting paid, so we’re not doing paperwork” and waved her through. She save a few hundred dollars in customs duties, because the agents are pissed.