WASHINGTON (AP) — Travel disruptions deepened Tuesday as senators raced to salvage a proposal to end the Homeland Security shutdown by funding much of the department, including airport workers going without pay, but excluding immigration operations that have been core to the dispute.
The sudden sense of urgency comes as U.S. airports are snarled by long security lines, with travelers being told to arrive hours before their flights in Houston, Atlanta and Baltimore/Washington International. Routine Department of Homeland Security funding was halted in mid-February ahead of the busy spring travel season. Nearly 11% of Transportation Security Administration workers who were scheduled to report for duty Monday — more than 3,200 — missed work, and at least 458 have have quit altogether since the shutdown began, according to DHS.
Democrats are refusing to fund the department without restraints on Trump’s immigration enforcement and mass deportation operations after federal agents killed two citizens in Minneapolis.
“The time to end this is now,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
But Democrats panned the offer as insufficient. And President Donald Trump himself was noncommittal.