Every day across the United States, transportation security officers report to airports, screen passengers and protect the traveling public while knowing their next paycheck may not come.
These are my views and my views alone. I do not speak for the Transportation Security Administration or the Department of Homeland Security. I speak only for myself, though what I describe is what I see among the officers I work shoulder to shoulder with every day.
I am a supervisory transportation security officer and have worked for the administration for several years. I work with men and women who dedicate their lives to protecting thousands of people each day. They face travelers who swear and berate them while explaining why they are the exception to rules that are outside the officers’ control. They serve people who simply want to get from here to there safely. These women and men literally put their faces into bags that could contain dangerous materials and do it, quite often, with a smile.
Over the past six months, roughly 120,000 employees across the Department of Homeland Security, including around 50,000 TSA officers, have faced uncertainty about their paychecks three times and have missed multiple paychecks during this time. The most recent paycheck arrived on Feb. 28 and only covered half of a two-week pay period before the government shutdown affected most of the Department of Homeland Security, leaving many of its front-line components without funding. These paychecks were only a fraction of what officers normally receive. Many of them already live paycheck to paycheck, and deductions for insurance, federal and state taxes, FICA, retirement, and other obligations are still taken out as if those paychecks were whole.
I have seen these same men and women step away from public view and break down in tears, wondering how they will pay rent, utilities, day care, food, medical bills and the gasoline needed to drive to the very job that currently cannot pay them. Yet they are still required to report to work every day because they are essential to the national security of this country.
And they do it.
They show up. They clock in. They do their job. And they go home waiting for 278 people to say “yes.”
I do not blame one side or the other. Situations like this feel like a symptom of a deeper problem that was foreseen nearly 250 years ago by George Washington. In his farewell address, he warned that the “spirit of party” could “distract the public councils,” “kindle the animosity of one part against another” and eventually lead to a form of political domination that harms the nation. More than two centuries later, his warning still feels uncomfortably relevant.
From the beginning of the record-setting shutdown at the end of last year to now, my own credit score has dropped more than 150 points because I missed payments I simply could not make. I had a vehicle repossessed because I could not meet my payments. I have faced the possibility of eviction multiple times despite providing a letter from DHS explaining the circumstances employees face. This month, my apartment complex has given me until the 13th to make my rent payment before eviction proceedings begin.
Across the country, many airports, airlines and communities have stepped forward to help. For that generosity, we are deeply grateful. Many have relied on the kindness of family members, neighbors, churches and local communities to stay afloat. I’ve had friends step in to help pay bills and even bring dinner.
For these kindnesses, I offer sincere thanks. In many cases across the country, it has quite literally kept people going.
But donations of nonperishable food cannot pay rent, medical bills, utilities or many of the other obligations families face every day. Paychecks do. Too many officers have resorted to donating plasma, picking up second or third jobs when possible, or simply doing without while we wait.
Federal employees are public servants, not leverage in political standoffs. We are not abstractions in a policy debate. We are people with families, responsibilities and communities that depend on us.
Every day, millions of Americans walk through airports trusting that someone is standing watch. TSA officers continue to report for duty, inspect bags and keep dangerous items off airplanes even when their own financial lives are under strain. They do this quietly, professionally and without recognition. More broadly, the entire nation depends on the Department of Homeland Security, especially at a time of heightened global tensions, to keep us all safe.
A country that depends on that level of dedication should not place those same public servants in this position again. The government should end this shutdown as quickly as possible.