Trump proposes to cut 9,400 TSA workers, $1.5 billion from budget

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, April 6 (Reuters) - The White House is proposing to cut more than 9,400 workers and just over $1.5 billion from the 60,000-employee Transportation Security Administration that handles airport security operations, according to budget documents.

The details were part of a budget document for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees TSA, that is part of the White House budget proposal for the next fiscal year.

Congress will hold hearings on the White House budget request later this month as lawmakers aim to reach a new budget deal before the fiscal year ends on September 30. Some Republican lawmakers have pushed to privatize TSA completely.

The budget details were unrelated to the funding impasse in Congress over DHS for the current year, which has caused airport delays as TSA workers went without paychecks.

President Donald Trump on Friday proposed requiring smaller airports to use private security instead of TSA as a first step toward privatizing the agency created after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The White House said this change would cut the TSA payroll by more than 4,500 jobs. The TSA proposes to cut another 4,800 jobs by improving efficiency, ending staffing at exit lanes and eliminating redundancies.

The employee cuts would save more than $500 million.

The union that represents TSA security officers, the American Federation of Government Employees, opposes privitization, saying it would make air travel less safe.

The proposal would cut the agency's $7.8 billion budget by about 20% and comes after TSA has lost more than 1,600 workers during government funding disruptions last fall and this spring. About 50,000 security screeners at U.S. airports are TSA employees.

Trump has been critical of the TSA. He fired its head, David Pekoske, on his first day in office in 2025 and has not nominated a replacement.

Last year, the White House said, "TSA has consistently failed audits while implementing intrusive screening measures that violate Americans’ privacy and dignity."

The Biden administration increased the size of the TSA. The TSA screened 904 million passengers in 2024, which was a record high and a 5% increase over 2023.

The recent security snarls at airports have posed operating challenges for carriers such as American Airlines AAL.O, Delta Air Lines DAL.N, United Airlines UAL.O, Southwest Airlines LUV.N and others.