A Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) agent seems on passengers queue to undergo safety at New York’s LaGuardia airport on March 22, 2026.
Charly Triballeau | Afp | Getty Photographs
NEW YORK — Andrew Leonard confirmed up at John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport at 4:45 a.m. on Monday for his 7 a.m. flight to Seattle. Almost two hours later, he made it by way of safety and to his gate simply in time for boarding.
“I fly out of this terminal on a regular basis and that is insane,” stated Leonard, a 34-year-old performing arts trainer in New York who was en path to Seattle forward of a household trip to Hawaii.
He’s one among tens of hundreds of vacationers across the U.S. who’re dealing with further lengthy safety wait occasions at main airport hubs like Atlanta, New York and Houston as a consequence of elevated absences of Transportation Safety Administration officers. TSA employees are dealing with a second missed full paycheck this week as a partial authorities shutdown continues.
White Home border czar Tom Homan stated Sunday stated the administration would deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers to airports on Monday to assist ease safety strains amid the Division of Homeland Safety shutdown.
ICE brokers weren’t seen at checkpoints at Kennedy Airport’s Terminal 8 early Monday, and it wasn’t clear the place or when brokers can be deployed. DHS and TSA did not instantly reply to a request for remark early Monday.
Homan informed CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the ICE brokers can be “serving to TSA transfer these strains alongside,” together with by guarding exit doorways to alleviate TSA brokers so they might display vacationers. “We’re merely there to assist TSA do their jobs in areas that do not want their specialised experience.”
TSA’s greater than 50,000 officers have been working with out their common paychecks because the partial authorities shutdown started in mid-February. The shutdown comes as Democrats demand adjustments to how federal immigration enforcement operates in trade for releasing DHS funding after two U.S. residents had been shot and killed by officers in Minneapolis.
Tons of of TSA officers have stop because the shutdown began, in keeping with their union, the American Federation of Authorities Workers.
The safety line at John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport on Monday, March 23, 2026.
Leslie Josephs/CNBC
The journey trade, together with airline executives, have blasted lawmakers for failing to pay important authorities employees throughout repeated shutdowns which have snarled journey.
In early 2019 and in late 2025, two federal authorities shutdowns ended shortly after journey disruptions escalated following higher-than-typical absences of air visitors controllers. Their pay is not affected by this deadlock.
New York’s LaGuardia Airport was closed on Monday morning following a collision of an Air Canada regional jet and an emergency automobile on Sunday night time. Some passengers informed CNBC they’d switched to fly out of Kennedy due to the disruptions.
— CNBC’s Garrett Downs contributed to this text.