World Cup travellers face the longest TSA waits in history as staff shortages cause chaos in the United States

Martin Macdonald

• 26 Mar 2026 09:01 CDT
• 3 min read

News

Football fans travelling to World Cup host cities face historically long waits at Transport Security Administration checkpoints.

There is currently a partial government shutdown in the United States after Democrats refused to provide more Homeland Security funding. Homeland Security is the department that deals with immigration enforcement and there is major scrutiny on them at the moment following the ICE shootings of two American citizens in Minnesota in January.

This is the second shutdown in the past year, following one in November of 2025 which left thousands of federal workers without pay.

"We need to rein in ICE and end the violence," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

"That means ending roving patrols. It means requiring rules, oversight, and judicial warrants... Masks need to come off, cameras need to stay on, and officers need visible identification. No secret police."

The current shutdown has cost Department of Homeland Security and TSA workers $1 billion in wages.

A raft of new workers were expected to be hired and trained before the 2026 World Cup as the United States will need to deal with millions of football fans travelling to the country. However, it has now been revealed that it is highly unlikely that any new workers will be trained and put in place by the time the tournament starts.

Ha Nguyen McNeill, the head of TSA, told Congress on Wednesday that airports across the country are experiencing the “highest wait times in TSA history” due to staff shortages, while it takes "four to six months" to train new TSA operatives, meaning the World Cup will not receive extra security coverage.

“This is a dire situation,” McNeill said. “We are facing a potential perfect storm of severe staffing shortages and an influx of millions of passengers at our airports for the World Cup games in less than 80 days.

“Many in our workforce have missed bill payments, received eviction notices, had their cars repossessed and utilities shut off, lost their childcare, defaulted on loans, damaged their credit line, and drained their retirement savings. Some are sleeping in their cars, selling their blood and plasma, and taking on second jobs to make ends meet.”

Workers simply cannot afford to work without being paid, and that has led to a 50% absence rate. Before the partial government shutdown, the absence rate was 4%.

Republicans and Democrats are blaming each other for the mess.

It was suggested that Immigration and Customs agents could be deployed to airports to help with the workload on a more permanent basis, but that idea was shut down.

“These agents cannot do TSA’s job, nor should they, and they aren’t trained to do it,” said Bennie Thompson of a homeland security committee.

“So we see images of ICE agents standing around or walking through terminals, doing nothing to reduce the lines at security checkpoints, while TSA personnel continue to do their jobs without pay because Republicans refuse to vote for legislation to fund TSA. It’s ridiculous and maddening, but not surprising.”

McNeill did say that ICE agents were performing “non-specialized screening functions” and have been “incredibly helpful to alleviate the burden on our workforce”.

Democrats are refusing to sign off on a new DHS budget until reforms are made with ICE following the aforementioned shootings in January.

“ICE needs to act like every other law enforcement agency, with warrants, with badge numbers, with standards of conduct,” said Seth Magaziner, a Democratic representative, at Wednesday’s hearing.

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