Amid the long lines and delays at the country’s airports, travelers say they feel deeply sympathetic to the airline workers who have been caught up in the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security — and deeply frustrated with politicians in Washington for letting it all happen.
“These are the people who are suffering enough,” Lizabeth Garza-García, 45, of Fort Worth, Texas, said of Transportation Security Administration agents as she was waiting in line at San Diego International Airport. “We don’t want another 9/11. … I’d like these people to get funded.”
President Donald Trump signed a memo Friday directing DHS to pay TSA workers, who have missed paychecks during the agency shutdown that began Feb. 14. Employees are expected to receive most of their back pay starting Monday, according to a TSA email shared by an agency officer.
Trump signed the memo after the House rebelled against a Senate-passed compromise that would have funded all of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. A senior administration official said the money will come from the One Big Beautiful Bill, the tax-cut and spending legislation Trump signed into law in July.
On why Trump didn’t sign the back pay measure until now, a senior White House official said the administration conducted a “lengthy review process” that “identified a pathway” out of the crisis.
“Air travel in America was at a breaking point, and the president took decisive action in the face of a stalled Congress,” the official said, blaming the shutdown on Democrats.
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The impasse has led TSA workers — who also went through an extended government shutdown last year — to turn to the kindness of family members, friends and food banks to get by. People have also faced hourslong wait times at airports, with security lines extending out the doors in some places.
Travelers at airports said they knew that while long lines were an annoyance, the federal workers had it much worse.
“They don’t deserve to be without pay,” said Frank Oberon, a San Diego resident returning home from a trip to Austin, Texas, with his wife, Ruth.
Ruth said she witnessed travelers giving gift cards to TSA agents in Austin, hoping they would help them endure without pay.
The couple vote Republican and support Trump, and they said the funding battle won’t change that. Frank, a retired state corrections officer, said he doesn’t blame Trump.
“It’s really not his thing,” he said, pointing to Congress’ power over funding.
David Goodspeed, 59, of Alexandria, Virginia, who was flying out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Sunday, said: “Failure to fund the TSA is a dereliction of duty by the Congress. They’ve given too much power to the president. That funding resides in their hands. … And Donald Trump has been pushing the Republican leadership in Congress to deny that funding.”
Florida resident David Simmons, 63, who was also at National, said: “I blame them all. It’s their job to work this out and they’re not doing it.”
“I blame the Democrats more if I had to pick a side. Withholding TSA money is not on target for the issue that they’re protesting,” he added. “I get that you don’t like what ICE is doing. I’m not saying that’s not a legitimate protest. I’m just saying they’re killing the chicken to scare the monkey. They’re attacking this group to get the change they want.”
An NBC News poll conducted in October, during the last government shutdown, found that voters blamed Trump and congressional Republicans more for the impasse. But the share of voters who blamed Democrats was the highest compared with other shutdowns measured in NBC News polling over the last 30 years.
Democrats who spoke with NBC News put more blame on Trump, but frustration with Congress — and the federal government’s inability to work together — was widespread.
Patricia Wright, 81, a Democrat from Setauket, New York, was in line at John F. Kennedy International Airport. She called the situation at the airports “ridiculous” and said it “seems to me like our president is responsible.”
“Let’s collaborate, let’s cooperate, and let’s get things back to normal,” she said. “I think it’s crazy that we’re dealing with these lines on top of gas prices going up. It feels like things are falling apart.”
Miraj Shaw-Hudson also blames Trump and said there was “no reason why these TSA agents shouldn’t be getting paid for doing their jobs.”
“We need everybody to vote, because this situation is not it,” said Shaw-Hudson, 28, a Democrat from Oakland, California, who was also at JFK. “We need a new Congress, a new government. We need a new president. I don’t have kids, but I wouldn’t want to raise kids in this economy, and that’s not even including the higher gas prices.”
Montville, New Jersey, resident Aime Simeus, 49, said he wasn’t sure who was at fault. Simeus is a Democrat but didn’t vote in the 2024 election.
“I understand why the left doesn’t want to sign the bill, though I think there are few actual leaders in both parties,” he said. “Nobody wants to step up to the plate and do something. It’s tough for the Democrats when the country is being run by Donald Trump and you’re on the other side of the aisle and you don’t want to agree with him, even though that might be messing things up.”
Marshall Snyder, 65, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, said at National Airport: “They all need to look in the mirror. I can’t believe 535 grown men and women [in the House and the Senate] can’t come to an agreement.”