Travelers using South Florida’s two largest airports will not see a member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet blame Democrats for the government shutdown.
Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport are not playing a new TSA video of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem discussing the airport security agency and the government shutdown.
The video is meant to be playing at TSA airport security checkpoints as passengers queue up for their screenings before going to their gates to catch their flights.
“Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government and because of this many of our operations are impacted and most of our TSA employees are working without pay,” Noem says in front of an American and Department of Homeland Security flags in the video.
The Miami and Fort Lauderdale airports are two of the three busiest in Florida.
A spokesman for MIA says the airport is showing TSA’s video about “Real ID,” the driver’s license that meets federal security standards, “to be consistent with Miami-Dade County policy regarding messaging within the MIA terminal.”
A spokeswoman for the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport tells WLRN “our advertising policy does not permit political messaging to be displayed in our facility."
The Broward County Aviation Department owns the video monitors at the TSA checkpoints.
Both airports are owned and managed by their respective county governments. MIA sees about 150,000 passengers each day. Almost 100,000 people pass through FLL daily.
Palm Beach International Airport said it is not responsible for the video monitors within security checkpoints. It did not answer whether the new Noem video is displayed at the airport’s TSA security queues.
Key West International Airport did not respond to an email inquiry about the video.
The video is not being played at over a dozen airports across the country, including Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.
Some airports not displaying the video have cited the Hatch Act. That 1939 law limits political activities of federal workers. The act was not explicitly cited by MIA or the Broward County airport for not displaying Noem’s video.
“We remain fully supportive of TSA’s mission and continue to collaborate closely with them in serving our shared customers,” said a MIA spokesperson.
Several federal agency websites have featured language regarding the shutdown since it took effect on Oct. 1. The FEMA homepage includes a banner saying, “Due to the lapse in federal funding, portions of this website may not be updated and some non-disaster assistance transactions submitted via the website may not be processed or responded to until after appropriations are enacted."
The Housing and Urban Development website is more pointed and political. A large red banner greets visitors, saying “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.”
