Nearly 500 airport security staff quit as DHS shutdown drags on with no end in sight – US politics live | Trump administration
DHS shutdown stretches to nearly six weeks with no end in sight and delays at airports
Hello, welcome to the live blog of US politics.
No progress in talks to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Wednesday, as the shutdown has spanned nearly six weeks and has no end in sight.
Democratic lawmakers have demanded new restrictions on federal agents conducting the president’s deportation operation. But Republicans rejected the proposal and instead proposed removing money for immigration enforcement from the homeland security spending bill.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer immediately pushed back on the proposal, saying Democrats had responded with a measure that combined DHS funding with a set of new guardrails for immigration enforcement operations; This was something the party had been insisting on for months.
But that didn’t catch the GOP’s attention. “Be serious, people,” Senate majority leader John Thune said in response to Democrats’ counteroffer.
The funding cut led to long lines at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints at some major airports, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta international airport and George Bush intercontinental airport in Houston. It prompts the President to deploy ICE agents to relieve traffic congestion this week.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed yesterday: Nearly 500 TSA officers resigned Since what he calls the “Democrat shutdown” began.
“This is a very dire situation,” TSA acting administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said at a House hearing Wednesday.
The standoff is likely to extend a partial government shutdown that began in mid-February after Democrats refused to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Border Patrol and other agencies involved in Donald Trump’s mass deportation drive without reforms demanded in response to the killing of two US citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis.
Schumer, meanwhile, sought to place blame for the travel chaos on Republicans, saying his latest proposal disrupted talks approaching a compromise.
“We thought some progress was being made,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “The Republicans then sent us their proposal yesterday, and that proposal contained none of the things that we had talked about, none of the reforms that we had discussed.” “So if anyone is slowing down negotiations and hurting TSA workers, it’s the Republican leadership that hasn’t made a single reform.”
Read our full story here:
In other developments:
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Airports across the country are experiencing the “highest wait times in TSA history,” the acting head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said Wednesday.As DHS’s partial shutdown enters its sixth week. At a House homeland security committee hearing, Ha Nguyen McNeill said his agency has been shut down for 50% of the fiscal year so far; This includes last year’s record-breaking 43-day cut in federal funding. He told lawmakers that by Friday, TSA workers will have missed out on $1 billion in paychecks due to the closures. More here.
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The US launched a new attack on a ship in the Caribbean, killing four people, US Southern Command said. The command, which oversees combat operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced that it carried out a “deadly kinetic attack on a ship operated by Terrorist Organizations” on the X channel. More here.
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Progressive lawmakers have unveiled a new policy imposing a moratorium on the construction of AI data centers. The policy, announced by independent senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, aims to ensure that the artificial intelligence boom protects the environment and communities and benefits workers rather than harms them. More here.
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Trump administration federal housing director Bill Pulte wants prosecutors to investigate New York attorney general Letitia James for insurance fraud, according to criminal referrals reported by MS Now CBS News. Referrals to prosecutors in Florida and Illinois allege that James may have committed mortgage insurance fraud. The allegations center on applications made to Universal Property Insurance, headquartered in Florida, and Allstate in Illinois. More here.
important events
Trump will hold his first cabinet meeting since the start of the Iran war at 10:00
Donald Trump will hold a cabinet meeting today for the first time since the USA started the war with Iran.
The meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. ET, and the president and defense secretary Pete Hegseth are expected to present a positive outlook on U.S. military action.
Venezuela’s Maduro to return to US court over dispute over legal fees
Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will return to a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday to argue that drug trafficking charges against him should be dropped more than two months after he and his wife were captured in a surprise U.S. military raid in Caracas.
According to Reuters, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are locked in a dispute over US sanctions that prevent the Venezuelan government from paying the couple’s legal defense costs.
Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, pleaded not guilty to charges including narcoterrorism conspiracy and were jailed awaiting trial in Brooklyn.
They asked U.S. district judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the charges, saying their inability to rely on Venezuelan public funds interfered with their right to a lawyer of their choice under the sixth amendment of the U.S. constitution.
Their lawyers said Maduro and Flores could not pay their defense fees alone.
Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, who represents WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said Hellerstein wants to withdraw from the case if he does not deny the charges and the Venezuelan government cannot pay his fees.
DHS shutdown stretches to nearly six weeks with no end in sight and delays at airports
Hello, welcome to the live blog of US politics.
No progress in talks to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Wednesday, as the shutdown has spanned nearly six weeks and has no end in sight.
Democratic lawmakers have demanded new restrictions on federal agents conducting the president’s deportation operation. But Republicans rejected the proposal and instead proposed removing money for immigration enforcement from the homeland security spending bill.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer immediately pushed back on the proposal, saying Democrats had responded with a measure that combined DHS funding with a set of new guardrails for immigration enforcement operations; This was something the party had been insisting on for months.
But that didn’t catch the GOP’s attention. “Be serious, people,” Senate majority leader John Thune said in response to Democrats’ counteroffer.
The funding cut led to long lines at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints at some major airports, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta international airport and George Bush intercontinental airport in Houston. It prompts the President to deploy ICE agents to relieve traffic congestion this week.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed yesterday: Nearly 500 TSA officers resigned Since what he calls the “Democrat shutdown” began.
“This is a very dire situation,” TSA acting administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said at a House hearing Wednesday.
The standoff is likely to extend a partial government shutdown that began in mid-February after Democrats refused to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Border Patrol and other agencies involved in Donald Trump’s mass deportation drive without reforms demanded in response to the killing of two US citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis.
Schumer, meanwhile, sought to place blame for the travel chaos on Republicans, saying his latest proposal disrupted talks approaching a compromise.
“We thought some progress was being made,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “The Republicans then sent us their proposal yesterday, and that proposal contained none of the things that we had talked about, none of the reforms that we had discussed.” “So if anyone is slowing down negotiations and hurting TSA workers, it’s the Republican leadership that hasn’t made a single reform.”
Read our full story here:
In other developments:
-
Airports across the country are experiencing the “highest wait times in TSA history,” the acting head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said Wednesday.As DHS’s partial shutdown enters its sixth week. At a House homeland security committee hearing, Ha Nguyen McNeill said his agency has been shut down for 50% of the fiscal year so far; This includes last year’s record-breaking 43-day cut in federal funding. He told lawmakers that by Friday, TSA workers will have missed out on $1 billion in paychecks due to the closures. More here.
-
The US launched a new attack on a ship in the Caribbean, killing four people, US Southern Command said. The command, which oversees combat operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced that it carried out a “deadly kinetic attack on a ship operated by Terrorist Organizations” on the X channel. More here.
-
Progressive lawmakers have unveiled a new policy imposing a moratorium on the construction of AI data centers. The policy, announced by independent senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, aims to ensure that the artificial intelligence boom protects the environment and communities and benefits workers rather than harms them. More here.
-
Trump administration federal housing director Bill Pulte wants prosecutors to investigate New York attorney general Letitia James for insurance fraud, according to criminal referrals reported by MS Now CBS News. Referrals to prosecutors in Florida and Illinois allege that James may have committed mortgage insurance fraud. The allegations center on applications made to Universal Property Insurance, headquartered in Florida, and Allstate in Illinois. More here.
