Noem Begins Handing Out $10,000 Bonuses to TSA Agents Who Worked Through the Shutdown

The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, says she will be giving out $10,000 bonuses to several thousand Transportation Security Administration employees who continued to work without pay during the government shutdown.The promise applies only to TSA workers, who screen passengers and luggage at airports among other duties, and not air traffic controllers whose personal hardships during the shutdown received more public attention. The Department of Transportation, which employs the controllers, has not yet announced a plan to compensate those workers. President Trump said this week that those who stayed on the job would receive some extra pay, while threatening to deduct some pay from those who took time off during the longest shutdown in history. Like the controllers, the TSA employees were forced to work for nearly six weeks without paychecks, causing many to take part-time jobs while using their vacation or sick time to make ends meet.The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said that at the most strenuous point of the shutdown, he and the Federal Aviation Administration were planning to reduce the number of flights at 40 high-traffic airports by 10 percent. Flights restrictions at those airports are now expected to remain at 6 percent while the government gets everyone back to their posts. On Thursday, Ms. Noem announced that she was going to be giving checks to “several thousand” TSA employees who received high performance marks from their supervisors during the shutdown. “People were not just inconvenienced, but they were also damaged and harmed by what Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and the Democratic Party did to the American people,” Ms. Noem said at a press conference in Texas on Thursday. The secretary offered effusive praise for those employees who continued to work during the shutdown, some of whom went so far as to pick up extra shifts. “They’re going to get a bonus check for stepping up – taking on extra shifts, for showing up each and every day, for serving the American people, and taking seriously the mission that the Department of Homeland Security takes seriously … every single day,” she said. At her press conference, Ms. Noem literally handed out paper checks to a group of TSA agents who were standing with her, telling the stories of some who worked extra shifts and one woman who is saving up to buy a home. The checks come just days after Mr. Trump sent a threatening message to air traffic controllers who called out of work during the shutdown, which lasted more than 40 days. “All Air Traffic Controllers must get back to work, NOW!!! Anyone who doesn’t will be substantially ‘docked,’” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.“For those that did nothing but complain, and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid, IN FULL, shortly into the future, I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU. You didn’t step up to help the U.S.A. against the FAKE DEMOCRAT ATTACK that was only meant to hurt our Country.”For those who continued to show up for work, the president said he would be “recommending a BONUS of $10,000 per person for distinguished service to our Country.”He concluded his message with a threat to air traffic controllers who took time off to work other jobs, saying they should “leave service in the near future,” though they would receive “NO payment or severance of any kind!”Mr. Duffy told reporters this week that he questions the “patriotism” of those air traffic controllers who did not show up for work every day without pay. “They decided on a continual basis not to show up for work,” Mr. Duffy said. “I’m concerned about those controllers. I’m concerned about their dedication. I’m concerned about their patriotism.”When asked how he would fund his direct payments to the air traffic controllers who stuck by their desks, the president said he wasn’t sure. “I don’t know” where the bonus money would come from, the president told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham. “I’ll get it from some place. I always get the money from some place.”

Noem Begins Handing Out $10,000 Bonuses to TSA Agents Who Worked Through the Shutdown

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