Acting Deputy Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Administrator Adam Stahl warned Tuesday that smaller airports might be forced to shut down if more security workers call out or quit amid an ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown that has withheld their paychecks.
Stahl said the TSA has already depleted its National Deployment Office of all available workers, spreading its resources as thin as they’ll go.
"So at this point, we're fully stretched," he told "Fox & Friends." "Frankly, there's not much else we can do. As the weeks continue, if this continues, it's not hyperbole to suggest that we may have to quite literally shut down airports, particularly smaller ones, if callout rates go up... A lot of those officers can't afford to come in."
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Union leaders representing TSA workers warned Monday that "every available financial option has been exhausted" as agents cope with "eviction notices, vehicle repossessions, empty refrigerators and overdrawn bank accounts."
Stahl said some TSA workers are living paycheck to paycheck, sleeping in their cars or even having blood drawn to afford their expenses. He said he spoke to one officer who couldn't afford care for her child with special needs.
About 300 TSA officers have quit, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Sunday, and a TSA spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the nationwide callout rate has shot up to 10.19% during the shutdown, compared to just 2% before.
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Stahl called on Senate Democrats to return to the negotiating table, imploring them to reopen DHS, the TSA's parent agency.
"I believe it's frankly unconscionable that we have Senate Democrats that are... holding our folks' financial livelihood hostage over political games, political partisanship. So we really need to get back to normal order."
"If there's not action taken, particularly from Senate Democrats, this is going to get worse, it's not going to get better, and there will be significant pain [for] the passenger as well," he continued.
Stahl predicted the hit to the agency's morale will have a lasting impact even after the government reopens.
"This is going to have knock-on effects also, long-term, to attrition and to recruitment, frankly. We saw an uptick of 25% attrition after the last shutdown, and so this is going to continue and worsen — not get better, get worse — if we don't get a resumption of normal operations, DHS funded, and money back into our TSA officers' pockets."
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