Pressure is mounting on the US Congress to end a funding shutdown that has resulted in travel disruptions, missed paychecks and even warnings of airport closures, but lawmakers have yet to resolve the underlying issue of reining in US President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement operations.
Senators were expected to vote yesterday on a Republican proposal that would fund the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and much of the US Department of Homeland Security, except the enforcement and removal operations conducted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but it is expected to fail.
Democrats say the plan does not go far enough at putting guardrails on ICE, US Customs and Border Protection and other federal officers who are engaged in the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps, particularly after the deaths of two Americans protesting the actions in Minneapolis.
Photo: AFP
With Congress set to leave town by the end of the week for its spring break recess, calls are intensifying for an end to the 41-day stalemate that has put the livelihoods of TSA officers at risk as they provide airport security without pay.
“This is a dire situation,” TSA Acting Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill testified at a US House of Representatives hearing on Wednesday.
She described the multiple hardships facing unpaid TSA workers —piling up bills and eviction notices, even plasma donations to make ends meet — and warned of potential airport closures if more employees refuse to come to work. Daily callout rates have increased to 11 percent nationwide.
“At this point, we have to look at all options on the table,” she said. “And that does require us to, at some point, make very difficult choices as to which airports we might try to keep open and which ones we might have to shut down as our callout rates increase.”
Trump initially signed off on the plan the Republican senators brought to him late on Monday, but on Tuesday he said he would not be happy with any deal.
While the Republican offer added one new restraint on immigration officers, funding the use of body cameras that had previously been agreed to, it excluded other policies that Democrats have demanded — such as that federal agents wear identification, remove their face masks and refrain from conducting raids around schools, churches or other sensitive places.
Democrats had been in several days of talks with the White House, including with border czar Tom Homan, which appeared to be making progress toward a deal. The White House presented its own offer with several items Democrats had been demanding, including officer IDs and training. Those negotiations broke down over the weekend.
McNeill told lawmakers that multiple airports are experiencing greater than 40 percent callout rates and more than 480 transportation security officers have quit during the shutdown.
She cited the growing financial strain on the TSA workforce.
“Some are sleeping in their cars, selling their blood and plasma, and taking on second jobs to make ends meet, all while being expected to perform at the highest level when in uniform to protect the traveling public,” she said.
McNeil also said TSA officers working at the nation’s airports have experienced a more than 500 percent increase in the frequency of assaults since the shutdown began.
“This is unacceptable, and it will not be tolerated,” she said.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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