The Department of Homeland Security has shut down TSA Precheck as of early Sunday morning and has taken other actions to save money because Congressional Democrats have shut down part of the government.
TSA PreCheck lanes will be closed and all courtesy escorts, including for members of Congress, will cease. DHS also halted all non-disaster-related Federal Emergency Management Agency response efforts to prioritize disaster response.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said that government shutdowns have consequences.
“This is the third time that Democrat politicians have shut down this department during the 119th Congress,” Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. “Shutdowns have real-world consequences, not just for the men and women of DHS and their families who go without a paycheck, but it endangers our national security. The American people depend on this department every day, and we are making tough but necessary workforce and resource decisions to mitigate the damage inflicted by these politicians. TSA and CBP are prioritizing the general traveling population at our airports and ports of entry and suspending courtesy and special privilege escorts. FEMA will halt all non-disaster related response to prioritize disasters. This is particularly important given this weekend another significant winter storm is forecast to impact the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast United States.”
FEMA has entered emergency operating status and is scaling back to bare-minimum, life-saving operations only. The agency will cease all non-essential activities and focus exclusively on immediate disaster response where there is an active threat to life, public health, or safety. As a result:
Public Assistance will not move forward for ongoing or legacy disasters. FEMA will only carry out Public Assistance activities for new or recent disasters requiring immediate emergency action to protect lives or prevent catastrophic damage.
All non-emergency recovery work is paused, including project formulation, long-term recovery efforts, planning, and administrative processing that does not address an imminent threat.
Non-disaster-related activities are halted so limited personnel and resources can be redirected to urgent response operations.
New initiatives, discretionary programs, pilot efforts, and policy development are suspended until funding is restored.
Travel, deployments, and operational support are restricted to those strictly necessary to respond to active disasters and life-safety emergencies.
Full recovery and assistance operations will resume once funding is restored. Officers assigned to process Global Entry travelers will be reassigned to process all other arriving travelers.
CBP will also suspend requests for port courtesies for members of Congress at all ports of entry, including escorts and tours so personnel to be reassigned to essential border security operations.
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