Congress’ deepening impasse over homeland security funding was plain to see Saturday even here in Marietta, away from the chaos in American airports and more than 500 miles from the halls of the U.S. Capitol.
The trouble isn’t just the House and Senate can’t come to terms on how to reopen the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, whose roles include airport security screening. It’s that each chamber passed its version of a bill restoring funding — and then left Washington.
Consider the scene in a hangar at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, where members of two groups at loggerheads — Senate Democrats and House Republicans — found themselves sharing a stage at an event for high schoolers to learn about military service academies.
The event was hosted by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, one of the Senate Democrats who have insisted for weeks that they won’t agree to extend funding to immigration agencies without putting new guardrails on President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign.
He was joined by U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick, a Cumming Republican, who answered a reporter’s question about whether he supports a Senate-passed compromise with a simple: “Hell no.”
The Senate voted in the wee hours of Friday morning to fund most of DHS, except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. House Republicans, including McCormick, countered late Friday by passing a bill called a continuing resolution, or C.R., that would fund the agency in its entirety.
Members of both chambers then scattered across the country for a two-week recess, which is how Ossoff and McCormick found themselves repeating the same arguments in Marietta they have made in Washington for weeks.
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Ossoff said the impasse was the product of “an incompetent, distracted and disengaged president.” McCormick pointed a finger back at Democrats, whose tactics, he said, were an attempt at “ruling from the minority.”
Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of the event, each man offered a similar message: The DHS shutdown would be over if the other chamber would go back to Washington and pass their bill as-is.
Said Ossoff: “The House should pass the measure immediately and make sure folks get paid and our nation is well-secured.”
Said McCormick: “We just passed a C.R. His turn.”
Congress has come under intense pressure in recent days to break its impasse, as the lack of funding has rippled through airports. Transportation Security Administration officials have been working without pay for six weeks. Thousands of them called out Friday. And more than 500 have quit altogether, according to DHS.
The problems have been especially evident at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where hourslong security screening lines have snaked past baggage claim carousels and at times out the door to the curbside drop-off area.
TSA workers are expected to start receiving paychecks Monday after Trump sent a memo Friday ordering DHS to move money around to pay them.
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Credit: (Ben Gray for the AJC)
It’s unclear how that move will impact operations at the airport. DHS said Friday marked the shutdown’s highest TSA employee call-out rate nationally so far. At Hartsfield-Jackson, more than 38% of workers called out, the agency said.
The Atlanta airport appeared to avoid the worst of the lines Saturday, typically a slower travel day. Passing through the airport on his way to the event at Dobbins, McCormick said he hadn’t seen the “pandemonium” he had on previous trips, when he found himself stuck in long lines even with fast-track programs like TSA PreCheck and Clear.
“It’s tough,” McCormick said, “and I’m hearing about it — believe me.”
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