With TSA NOT getting paid, and long screening lines, but ICE and CBP ARE getting paid?
And Trump & Co. still quietly boasting they ARE gonna keep doing their deportations ‘thing’, their way?
‘Things’, have NOT changed….
And could go on for a LONG TIME….
Senate Democrats sent over their latest proposal for immigration enforcement changes at the Department of Homeland Security as a shutdown of the vast department drags into its second month.
The offer, confirmed by a White House official and two other people with knowledge of the matter, is the latest of several the two parties have traded since the funding lapse began Feb. 14. Little progress has been made since toward an agreement that would fund agencies including TSA, FEMA, ICE and the Coast Guard.
Democrats have vowed to block funding until the administration agrees to immigration enforcement changes in the wake of federal agents killing two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. Republicans, meanwhile, have rejected Democrats’ efforts to lop off immigration enforcement agencies and fund the rest of DHS.
The White House is “currently reviewing” the offer, the official said. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Tuesday that the offer “didn’t change much from where we were.”
He said the White House has offered to increase funding for agent body cameras from an initial $20 million to $100 million and has proposed audits from the inspector general and reviews for noncompliance.
“There’s a whole bunch of stuff in there … that, in my view, have been significant gives on the part of the White House,” he said…..
….
TSA absences double during shutdown, 300 officers quit, as some airports see longer security lines
Unscheduled absences among airport security officers have more than doubled during the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown, with more than 300 employees leaving the agency since the start of the DHS shutdown, according to internal TSA statistics obtained exclusively by CBS News.
TSA officer call-out rates have climbed into double-digit percentages at some airports, including half the officers at Houston’s Hobby Airport, straining screening operations and contributing to longer security lines.
Statistics obtained from Transportation Security Administration officials show the nationwide callout rate — unscheduled absences by frontline officers — has risen to an average of 6% during the shutdown, compared with about 2% before government funding lapsed.
Several days saw significantly higher national absence rates. The highest nationwide rate reached 9% on Feb. 23, followed by 8% on March 6 and 7% on March 9, according to the internal data.
The increase comes as roughly 50,000 transportation security officers are being required to work without pay during the DHS funding lapse that began Feb. 14.
At individual airports, sick outs have climbed even more sharply. At Houston’s Hobby Airport, 53% of officers called out on March 8, with 47% calling out the following day – resulting in nearly half of scheduled officers not reporting to work during the two-day stretch.
At John F. Kennedy International Airport, TSA officers averaged a 21% absence rate during the shutdown, the highest among major airports. Other heavily affected hubs included Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (19%), William P. Hobby Airport in Houston (18%), Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (14%) and Pittsburgh International Airport (13%)….
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*UPDATE….
Is the House Democratic leader looking to give up on this?
This from Axios seems to be a piece driven by Republicanbs to try and push Senate Democrats rto give up also…
We’ll see if this is serious….
Giving UP WOULD DEFEAT any effort to place changes and limitations on the Miller/Trump ICE deportation campaign…
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) announced in a letter to his members Monday that Democrats will file a discharge petition on a bill to fund TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard and other non-immigration DHS agencies.
- Discharge petitions can be used to force votes on legislation opposed or ignored by the majority party’s leadership. If one is signed by 218 members, it forces a vote.
- “I urge all members to join us as we press Republicans for an up-or-down vote on legislation to protect our hardworking federal civil servants,” Jeffries wrote.
Between the lines: This plan would effectively end the DHS shutdown altogether.
- The White House has already been keeping ICE and CBP funded with the more than $100 billion made available to the agencies in the One Big, Beautiful Bill.
- Several Democrats told Axios that, if the White House doesn’t cough up what they deem adequate reforms to immigration enforcement policy, Democrats are content to simply wash their hands of any culpability in alleged ICE abuses…..
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