Chuck Schumer held the border wide open for four years.
Now he's holding 61,000 TSA officers hostage to protect it.
Donald Trump went to bat for those officers Saturday morning – and put Chuck Schumer's name on exactly why they're broke.
Democrats Killed a Deal That Was Already Done
This wasn't a stalemate. There was a bipartisan bill.
The House passed it. Republicans and Democrats voted for it together.
Then Senate Democrats walked away at the last minute.
Their demand: hamstring ICE. Require judicial warrants before agents can enter homes.
Force officers to remove masks during operations. Essentially, tie the hands of the men and women deporting child rapists and fentanyl traffickers.
Republicans said no. Democrats shut down DHS.
That shutdown started February 14th.
Today is day 31.
Meanwhile, ICE and CBP aren't affected – they got $75 billion in direct funding through last year's reconciliation bill.
The agencies Democrats claim to be "reining in" are fully operational.
The people getting destroyed are the TSA officers screening your bags at 5 AM, the FEMA workers who respond when tornadoes hit, and the Coast Guard crews protecting American waters.
Democrats didn't shut down ICE.
They shut down everyone else.
These Officers Have Nothing Left
TSA Officer Johnny Jones – secretary-treasurer of the AFGE TSA Council 100 – went on Fox News Saturday and laid it out cold.
Workers have to calculate whether they can afford gas to drive to the airport.
Whether they can pay for childcare.
Whether showing up to do their job actually costs them money they don't have.
"Most people have drained through their emergency funds," Jones said. "A lot of them still have loans or debts from the previous shutdown."
That's the part Democrats want you to forget.
This is the third shutdown in five months.
TSA officers went 43 days without pay last fall – the longest government shutdown in American history. Over 1,100 officers quit during that stretch.
The ones who stayed took on debt, missed rent, had cars repossessed.
They never recovered. Now they're doing it again.
The TSA's own acting administrator told Congress in February: eviction notices, missed childcare, late fees, financial hardship. "We cannot put them through another such experience," she said.
Democrats put them through it anyway.
The Security Risk Democrats Won't Talk About
Absence rates at TSA checkpoints have doubled since the shutdown began.
JFK International hit a 21% absence rate.
Atlanta was at 19%. Houston Hobby – 18%. Security lines stretched to four hours.
Former TSA Administrator John Pistole told CBS News he worries adversaries are watching.
When checkpoint lines hit four hours and staffing craters, that's a real vulnerability – the kind enemies exploit.
During the 2018-2019 shutdown under different circumstances, absence rates hit 10% right before the government reopened.
That was with just one shutdown. These officers have been hit three times.
Three hundred TSA employees have already quit during the current shutdown. Each one takes four to six months to replace and train.
The workforce Democrats are bleeding out will take years to rebuild.
Chuck Schumer knows this. Hakeem Jeffries knows this. They're doing it anyway – to stop Trump from deporting criminals.
This Is What Democrats Just Told You
Trump's Truth Social post was the most honest political statement of the week.
Democrats, he wrote, "want your money to go to Border Criminals, Murderers, foreign Drug Dealers, and some of the worst people on earth."
That's not rhetorical. That's the actual math.
Democrats had a fully funded DHS bill. They rejected it.
Their stated reason: ICE needs to stop arresting people without judges signing off first.
The people ICE is arresting are illegal immigrants – many with criminal records, many evading deportation orders.
TSA officers are losing their homes to protect that population.
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole passed a bipartisan bill.
Democrats keep saying no.
Spring break travel is peaking right now.
Millions of American families are in those four-hour security lines.
And the people suffering most are the officers – starting around $46,000 a year – who showed up anyway, because Trump asked them to, because they love this country more than Chuck Schumer respects them.
Sources:
- "Democrats' Reckless DHS Shutdown Hits Americans Hard as 100,000+ Workers Go Without Pay," White House, March 2026.
- "Appropriations, Homeland Security Republicans Slam Democrats' DHS Shutdown for Risking Safety and Security of Americans," House Appropriations Committee Republicans, February 2026.
- Ha Nguyen McNeill, "Oversight Hearing – Potential DHS Shutdown Impacts," TSA.gov, February 11, 2026.
- "TSA Absences Double During Shutdown, 300 Officers Quit, as Some Airports See Longer Security Lines," CBS News, March 2026.
- "The Government Shutdown's $6 Billion Toll on Travel and the U.S. Economy," U.S. Travel Association, January 2026.
- "Democrats' DHS Shutdown Halts ICE Oversight They Demanded," Fox News Digital, February 2026.
