by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 5:05 PM ET, Wed March 25, 2026
Maybe we should be taking our shoes off after all when going through airport security checkpoints.
A new internal watchdog report, largely buried by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has identified "serious vulnerabilities" in TSA screenings at U.S. airports, according to CBS.
The vulnerabilities called out by the watchdog report include the Trump Administration's decision to allow travelers to keep their shoes on during airport security screenings.
That decision marked a shift from the longtime 'shoes off' checkpoint policy, which had been in place since 2006 and was initiated by the so-called 2001 'shoe bomber' plot. On December 22, 2001, just four months after the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, a man named Richard Reid boarded an American Airlines flight with 10 ounces of explosives in his shoe.
The new watchdog report about the Trump Administration's security checkpoint changes was provided to DHS five months ago. DHS, which until recently was led by Kristi Noem, has not responded to the concerning findings, according to internal communications provided to House Homeland Security Committee staff and reviewed by CBS.
The report in question was developed after a classified inspector general audit deployed what’s known as "red team" testing at various U.S. airport checkpoints. As part of those audits, undercover investigators tried to slip simulated weapons or explosives past TSA screeners. The results of that effort raised what CBS is now describing as “serious concerns about vulnerabilities in TSA screening procedures.”
Investigators are questioning whether the politically expedient decision to allow Americans to keep their shoes on outpaced the technological capabilities of U.S. airports to identify threats concealed in travelers' footwear.
While Noem previously told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that her agency responded to and addressed the concerns in the inspector general's report, that does not appear to be the case. A recent March 4 memo from Inspector General Joseph Cuffari says his office has not received any evidence to support Noem's claim.
Per CBS, auditors say they are still waiting for even the most basic step in the oversight process: A formal "management decision" explaining whether TSA agrees with the report’s findings, along with any corrective actions that may be on the horizon. Under federal law, agencies like TSA must provide a "management decision" within 90 days. Moreover, the decision must make clear whether the agency in question agrees with the inspector general’s findings and what actions will be taken in response. According to documents reviewed by CBS News, that process has not yet even begun.
Noem was recently dismissed from her job following the killing of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
The news of the rushed decision to allow travelers to keep their shoes on while passing through security comes at a time when U.S. airports and TSA are already under intense strain. Hundreds of TSA agents have quit amid the partial government shutdown that began on February 14 due to disagreements in Congress over a funding measure.
Democrats are refusing to fund the Department of Homeland Security without meaningful reforms for ICE agents following the shooting deaths of Good and Pretti in Minneapolis. Democrats have tried several times to vote unanimously to fund the TSA and other agencies that are now operating unpaid, like the Coast Guard and FEMA.
Republicans however, have refused to fund these agencies without funding ICE. President Trump is also not bringing the parties together to find a compromise. Instead Trump has demanded that Republicans reject any funding agreement that does not also pass the SAVE America Act, a measure voting rights activists have condemned as a voter suppression bill that would disenfranchises as many as 69 million women — by requiring Americans to produce a passport or birth certificate that matches their current legal name to register to vote.
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