Secretary Noem threatens to again suspend TSA PreCheck amid DHS shutdown

By Manu Raju, CNN

(CNN) — The Department of Homeland Security may again suspend TSA PreCheck by prioritizing “standard” security lanes at the airport amid the partial government shutdown, Secretary Kristi Noem told CNN.

It comes after the department walked back its decision over the weekend to pause TSA PreCheck, which allows travelers to get through airport security more quickly, amid an ongoing DHS shutdown. Customs and Border Protection’s Global Entry program remains paused.

“As we go forward and without funding for DHS, if we end up in a situation where these TSA officers have to go get other jobs and provide for their families, we’ll have to prioritize where the most travelers go through their security checkpoints,” Noem told CNN.

“We prioritize security lanes as we can staff them. So the ones that use the most travelers, which is the standard lanes, will be prioritized because most of the traveling public goes through those lanes,” she added.

Meanwhile, Noem denied that the department reversed its decision on halting PreCheck, saying, “We never reversed the decision. We just talked about it. What priorities we’d have to make if we had the situation where call outs went high.”

TSA PreCheck and Global Entry were not paused during last year’s government shutdown, which lasted 43 days.

The-CNN-Wire
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