In response to the government shutdown, the Department of Homeland Security is suspending Global Entry and TSA PreCheck. The premise is that with staff pay deferred until the end of the shutdown, fewer people will come to work, and so screeners are needed for general processing. Literally the opposite is true, and by TSA’s own statements this makes airport security less safe.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has taken a populist tact with this,
TSA and CBP are prioritizing the general traveling population at our airports and ports of entry and suspending courtesy and special privilege escorts.
And she makes it explicitly political,
This is the third time that Democrat politicians have shut down this department during the 119th Congress.
Of course, this move hasn’t been necessary in past shutdowns. And it literally has the opposite effect: it requires more screeners to process the same number of passengers, not fewer.
TSA’s past experience is that you need more passengers going through PreCheck when you have fewer screeners.
TSA PreCheck lines move more passengers through faster. They’re more staffing-efficient, since vetted passengers get lighter-touch security so each employee screens more passengers per hour. That’s not me, here’s a GAO report explaining not only that it’s more staffing-efficient, but means better security.
According to TSA, identifying more passengers as eligible for expedited screening will permit TSA to reduce screening resources for low-risk travelers, thereby enabling TSA to concentrate screening resources on higher-risk passenger populations.
Pushing all passengers through standard security means applying security resources equally to vetted and non-vetted travelers, which means worse security.
This shift means more screening staff time will be spent on each passenger, making screening checkpoints less efficient and less effective. It’s doing the opposite of what’s claimed, because this is shutdown politics not a necessary step in the face of limited staffing.
Global Entry is probably even the more extreme example of this, because most Global Entry processing is done by machine (kiosks) instead of by individual CBP employees. The DHS suggestion that forcing Global Entry passengers to be processes by employees instead of machines somehow reduces the need for employees is… bizarre.
Kristi Noem’s statement on the decision to suspend PreCheck and Global Entry says “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 our national security.” But it’s this decision that is creating the danger.
Noem’s job has been in jeopardy after U.S. citizen deaths tied to ICE enforcement efforts in Minneapolis. This puts her at the forefront of Trump administration efforts in the shutdown. Her political instinct is to be in front of the cameras. But it also risks making her very unpopular. She is literally the face of long screening lines at airports.
During the government shutdown in November, government-ordered flight cuts imposed mass pain on travelers, creating pressure to end the shutdown.
While TSA receives revenue from a dedicated ticket tax, it is not a dedicated payroll account and requires an appropriation for use. So passengers keep paying the TSA tax, but screeners still have their pay suspended during the shutdown, and passengers are forced into longer lines to dramatize the shutdown and accelerate the political crises.
This ratchets up pressure to end the shutdown. However, Republicans currently control the House, Senate and Presidency so it’s hard to imagine that they won’t be blamed – even if control of both congressional chambers is relatively narrow. And they’re already headed into a very challenging election later this year.
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