By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration has tapped a former White House official to serve as the acting head of the 60,000-employee Transportation Security Administration.
The TSA confirmed on Monday Ha Nguyen McNeill has been named deputy administrator and is serving as acting head of the agency that provides security at U.S. airports and other transportation hubs. In January, Trump forced out TSA Administrator David Pekoske, whose term did not expire until 2027.
McNeill served as the TSA’s chief of staff during Trump’s first term and previously worked at the National Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget. Trump has yet to name a nominee to head the agency.
The TSA screened 904 million passengers in 2024, which was a record high and a 5% increase over 2023.
In March, the largest federal employee union filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump’s administration from ending collective bargaining for nearly 50,000 TSA officers.
The American Federation of Government Employees filed a lawsuit claiming the Homeland Security Department canceled a bargaining agreement covering TSA officers as retaliation against the union for challenging other Trump administration initiatives.
The lawsuit seeks to block TSA from canceling a seven-year collective bargaining deal, which was enacted last year, and bar DHS from rescinding it again.
During former President Barack Obama’s administration, the TSA granted officers the ability to bargain over certain subjects, and former President Joe Biden’s administration expanded the scope of bargaining in 2021.
On February 27, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rescinded the directives allowing TSA officers to unionize and directed the agency to cancel the bargaining agreement within 90 days. Noem also said she had asked lawyers at the DHS to take actions to make it impossible for any future administration to grant TSA workers the right to bargain without action from Congress.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Lincoln Feast)
