Kristi Noem wants you to wait in longer lines at the airport - The Boston Globe

As if the current winter travel nightmare couldn’t get any worse, the Trump administration found a way to make it just a little more miserable for some 13 million American travelers.

The Department of Homeland Security, currently the subject of a partial government shutdown, summarily suspended its Global Entry program over the weekend.

It had also suspended the enormously popular TSA PreCheck, which would affect another 20 million travelers, but rescinded that within 24 hours after a public outcry from travelers and industry groups.

Both so-called Trusted Traveler programs offer passengers who have applied, been cleared, and paid for the privilege, access to shorter airport security lines. To suspend the Global Entry program is both counterproductive — why suspend a program that actually saves time for customs agents as well as passengers? — and simply churlish.

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Which means it’s the Trump administration’s ill-advised effort at the old Washington Monument Syndrome — you know, when the government chooses to cut the most obvious and well-liked program it runs in the face of a smallish budget cut.

This is how Representative Bennie G. Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security, put it in a statement:

“This is Trump and [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem purposely punishing the American people and using them as pawns for their sadistic political games. TSA PreCheck and Global Entry REDUCE airport lines and ease the burden on DHS staff who are working without pay because of Trump’s abuse of the Department and killing of American citizens.”

Meanwhile, there appears to be no end in sight for the partial shutdown, which was triggered by the refusal of congressional Democrats to approve a homeland security budget unless Republicans consent to some new guardrails to prevent the kind of egregious behavior the nation witnessed during the surging of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis. Democrats don’t have a majority in either chamber, but in the Senate the minority party can use procedural powers to prevent consideration.

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The partial shutdown began Feb. 14, just as Congress left town for a previously scheduled recess.

Democratic leaders are demanding the annual appropriation for the Department of Homeland Security include such safeguards for the public as expanded requirements for body cameras on ICE agents, limiting their use of masks, mandating they carry clear identification and badge numbers, and ensuring independent investigations of shootings — something very much in contention in the wake of the two deadly shootings in Minneapolis, both of US citizens.

As a result of the partial shutdown, about 95 percent of Transportation Security Administration agents — some 61,000 agents — have been working without pay, along with Secret Service agents, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Coast Guard. ICE agents, however, are largely unaffected, having been funded with about $75 billion for border security in the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed last July.

And while Republicans insist they would be trying again to pass a DHS funding bill now that Congress has returned to work this week, Democrats, some of whom had previously broken with their party to reopen the government the last time around, aren’t expressing any eagerness to cave on these issues.

Among those who broke with her party last time was Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada, who shows no sign of changing her mind this time around.

“We need increased accountability for ICE to stop these abuses of power, but Washington Republicans would rather have the entire Department of Homeland Security shut down than put guardrails on ICE,” she said in a statement. “It’s up to Republicans in Congress to decide whether they’ll work with us to rein in ICE’s out-of-control behavior or continue their DHS shutdown to block any reforms.”

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No, this time is indeed different. And Noem’s silly pledge to take away “courtesy escorts” from members of Congress at airports (did she forget her party, still in the majority, would be impacted more negatively?) just shows her level of seriousness — of lack thereof.

Unfortunately, it’s customs agents at the airport who will also be affected every bit as much by the suspension of Global Entry as those who paid $120 and submitted to a one-on-one interview in order to cut the line. In most major international airports, including Logan, the system uses facial recognition technology to speed travelers along, allowing agents to process dozens of passengers in a matter of minutes. So, again, how does suspending that program help anyone?

Oh wait. It doesn’t.

The traveling public won’t be fooled. Certainly those members of the traveling public weighing the value of lives lost to trigger-happy ICE agents against some extra time in a security line will understand how high the stakes are this time — and how low the response of the truly unserious Ms. Noem.

Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.