Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, quietly planned to temporarily suspend TSA PreCheck, but the White House stepped in and stopped it. The plan caused confusion and a quick reversal of decisions.
According to the Washington Post, DHS announced on a Saturday that it planned to halt TSA PreCheck, the popular program that lets travelers move faster through airport security, starting at 6:00 AM the following Sunday. Hours later, after pushback from travelers and industry groups, the agency completely reversed its decision. Social media users confirmed the PreCheck lines were running as usual.
The suspension plan came directly from Noem and Lewandowski. A White House official and someone close to the Trump administration confirmed that the White House intervened and shut it down. President Trump has reversed DHS decisions before; last year, he stopped the agency from cutting $187 million in counterterrorism and law enforcement grants for New York.
The TSA PreCheck saga reveals a deeper divide between Noem’s office and operational experts at DHS
DHS’s plans were tied to a partial government shutdown caused by a congressional standoff over DHS funding. Democrats have said they won’t fund the agency until Republicans agree to new restrictions on immigration enforcement, especially following the killings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renée Good by federal agents in Minneapolis.
A DHS spokesperson said the agency decided to handle TSA PreCheck “on an airport-by-airport basis depending on workforce and resource strain instead of a blanket policy.” The spokesperson added that if the shutdown continues, they “will be forced to implement these emergency measures nationwide to mitigate resource and workforce strain,” blaming “this political game by the Democrats” for putting “strain on our TSA workers who are working without pay.”
Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant DHS secretary under President Barack Obama, said the initial announcement “made no sense” from an operations standpoint and appeared to be an attempt to score “political points” against Democrats.
She explained, “If your goal is to process many people as efficiently as possible to limit the number of staff you need, you would actually enhance or quickly clear the TSA lines and then go to your general aviation line, so that did not make sense.” She said the episode highlights a continuing “division that we see between the secretary’s office and the operational experts.”
Lewandowski did not directly address his role in the PreCheck suspension. He told a reporter that DHS policy during the shutdown has been to “prioritize the general traveling public to make sure they travel through the line as quickly as possible,” with decisions made “on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of the airport director.”
While TSA PreCheck is back on, DHS confirmed that Global Entry, a program run by Customs and Border Protection, will remain paused. The department is also suspending airport police escorts for members of Congress and halting “all non-disaster-related Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response efforts to prioritize disaster response.”
This is not the first time Noem’s internal directives have created strain within DHS, with previous decisions drawing sharp criticism from within the agency. Noem has faced broader criticism over her management of DHS. She received bipartisan backlash in January over her handling of the killing of U.S. citizen Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, where she called it “an act of domestic terrorism” despite contradictory video evidence.
This incident was among the key moments where Noem’s own department began pushing back against her leadership. The department has also seen staff departures, with Madison Sheahan, the deputy ICE director, and Tricia McLaughlin, the agency’s top spokesperson, both announcing they are leaving.
Published: Feb 24, 2026 03:45 pm