DHS secretary turns long-planned TSA upgrades into billion-dollar talking point

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem this week offered what sounded like the most sweeping overhaul of airport security in more than a decade.

During stops at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas and Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, Noem breathlessly claimed that the administration is putting “over $1 billion” into TSA security screening upgrades.

“We will be putting over $1 billion into new scanning equipment, new X-ray equipment, [Advanced Imaging Technology] equipment,” she told reporters. “It’s been over a decade, maybe 15 years, since the department has put this kind of resources into new technologies to keep our transportation system secure.”

The money, she said, would begin deploying “over the next many months.”

It was a dramatic claim that signaled the Trump administration is doing something big and unprecedented at the nation’s airports.

But almost none of it is true in the way Noem presented it.

DHS has not disclosed any budget details showing where the money comes from, and no recent congressional appropriation matches the figure. A review of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) budget documents indicates the number reflects ongoing, multi-year equipment purchases rather than a new billion-dollar infusion.

Noem’s billion-dollar figure appears to be existing work that involves multi-year procurements and technology replacements that have been moving through TSA’s budget pipeline for years.

At the center of Noem’s claim is TSA’s Checkpoint Property Screening System (CPSS), the program responsible for rolling out computed tomography (CT) scanners that replace the two-dimensional X-ray machines used at airport checkpoints since the early 2000s.

CPSS is, by far, TSA’s largest and most expensive modernization program. But it is not new.

CT systems began piloting years ago, and TSA has been steadily procuring and deploying them – first in small batches, then in larger waves – as Congress and internal budgets have allowed. In the current budget cycle, CPSS receives about $215 million. Over a standard five-year procurement horizon, that number grows into the hundreds of millions.

Add in Credential Authentication Technology (CAT-2), the automated ID-verification units TSA has been fielding since 2018; Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) scanners, which have been upgraded, replaced, and re-procured multiple times in the last decade; and the alarm-resolution, checkpoint automation, and on-person detection systems that stitch these tools together, and Noem’s billion-dollar total becomes easy to reach.

But only if one counts the entire five-year investment plan. It’s not anything Congress has newly appropriated since January 20 after the second Trump administration took over.

There is another factor Noem does not mention. TSA modernization has been slowed for more than a decade because Congress has diverted significant amounts of the Passenger Security Fee – money passengers pay specifically for aviation security – into the Department of Treasury’s general fund.

Since 2013, roughly one-third of that fee has been redirected each year to offset unrelated federal spending, diverting more than $12 billion away from TSA’s security accounts.

The policy originated with the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, which was driven primarily by Republican fiscal-offset demands under then–House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, and extended in 2018 under unified Republican control of the House, Senate, and White House.

Democrats supported both deals, enabling the diversion, but did not drive the budget logic behind it.

Former TSA Administrator David Pekoske – removed when Trump returned to office – warned repeatedly that without ending the diversion, TSA would not reach full CT deployment until 2042 and full CAT deployment until 2049.

The slow modernization Noem now presents as a sudden billion-dollar push is, in large part, the result of these chronic, legislatively created funding shortfalls.

Then there’s the operational side of the fence, which includes training, staffing adjustments, and canine-unit expansion tied to the new equipment. These are housed in TSA’s operations and support programming account, not its procurement budget, and they, too, extend across years, rather than months.

Training officers on CT, reconfiguring checkpoint lanes, certifying personnel on new AIT configurations isn’t sudden, and none of it is unique to the second Trump administration.

All told, here is what the money in TSA’s own budget books looks like:

• CPSS: $215 million in FY 2026; roughly $500–$700 million over the five-year window.
• CAT-2 deployments: $80–$120 million annually; $250–$400 million across multiple fiscal years.
• AIT and AIT refresh: $60–$90 million annually; roughly $250–$300 million across the cycle.
• Alarm resolution, on-person, and automation tools: $25–$40 million annually; around $120–$180 million over the planning horizon.
• Training and staffing tied to these systems: another $100–$150 million across several years.
• Explosives detection canine deployment: $20–$30 million attributable to checkpoint operations.

Even the low end of these ranges lands comfortably above $1.1 billion. The upper end approaches $1.7–$1.8 billion. This is the real foundation of Noem’s number, a multi-year budgeting rhythm, not an unprecedented wave of new funding.

But this is also why her comments are so misleading. TSA has been modernizing its checkpoint technology continuously. CAT-1 and CAT-2 deployments began nearly a decade ago. CT scanning pilots started in the late 2010s.

AIT replacement cycles and software-driven privacy upgrades have been recurring features of the agency’s budget.

Congress funded screening equipment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and bipartisan measures in 2021 and 2022 supported checkpoint improvements and technology refreshes. The “15 years” Noem invokes erases all of it.

Her compression of timelines is equally revealing. Nothing in TSA’s capital investment plan can be deployed “over the next many months” like she said. Installing CT scanners requires airport electrical upgrades, lane redesign, facility renovations, and contractor scheduling that stretch far beyond a single season.

AIT replacements occur in rolling waves. CAT-2 units deploy in phases. Noem’s timeline is not merely optimistic; it is the kind of political time warp that turns years into months and the mundane into the monumental. The result is a neatly packaged illusion – a sweeping billion-dollar modernization presented as if it were a one-time, Trump-era breakthrough.

The truth, buried in budget tables and capital investment schedules, is far more incremental. It is a slow, deliberate, multi-year process that TSA has been pursuing for years, under multiple administrations, with uneven but steady progress.

TSA has repeatedly upgraded checkpoint systems during the past decade, including CAT-1 units deployed beginning in 2018, CT scanners piloted and procured starting in 2017, and multiple waves of AIT software and hardware refreshes throughout the 2010s and early 2020s.

So, Noem isn’t wrong that more than $1 billion will eventually flow into the equipment she names. But she’s wrong in suggesting that this reflects a sudden act of political will or a 15-year drought in security investment.

It reflects instead a familiar pattern of federal agencies taking long-planned, long-budgeted work and performing it as a dramatic new achievement.

The number is real. The story she tells about it is not.

Article Topics

airport biometrics  |  biometrics  |  Credential Authentication Technology (CAT)  |  DHS  |  government purchasing  |  passenger processing  |  TSA