NEW YORK — Andrew Leonard showed up at John F. Kennedy International Airport at 4:45 a.m. on Monday for his 7 a.m. flight to Seattle. Nearly two hours later, he made it through security and to his gate just in time for boarding.
“I fly out of this terminal all the time and this is insane,” said Leonard, a 34-year-old performing arts teacher in New York who was en route to Seattle ahead of a family vacation to Hawaii.
He is one of tens of thousands of travelers around the U.S. who are facing extra long security wait times at major airport hubs like Atlanta, New York and Houston due to elevated absences of Transportation Security Administration officers. TSA workers are facing a second missed full paycheck this week as a partial government shutdown continues.
White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday said the administration would deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports on Monday to help ease security lines amid the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.
ICE agents weren’t visible at checkpoints at Kennedy Airport’s Terminal 8 early Monday, and it wasn’t clear where or when agents would be deployed. DHS and TSA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment early Monday.
