A top TSA official divulged Wednesday that Cuba has yet to agree to allow U.S. air marshals aboard scheduled airline flights between the two countries — meaning there have been no air marshals on board thus far, despite representations officials made previously.
At a House hearing, TSA Deputy Administrator Huban Gowadia confirmed that air marshals are currently only allowed on charter flights between the U.S. and Cuba because the Cuban government has yet to sign the agreement U.S. officials provided in August to expand that security protection to scheduled flights.
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The disclosure comes after Seth Stodder, an assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, told the House Homeland Security Committee in May that new scheduled air service to and from Cuba would not begin until air marshals were allowed on board those flights. Additionally, in August, TSA provided the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, as well as reporters, a statement explaining that the United States and Cuba had “entered into an aviation security agreement that sets forth the legal framework for the deployment” of air marshals “on board certain flights to and from Cuba.”
Rep. John Katko, chairman of the Transportation Security subcommittee, told Gowadia during a full committee hearing that TSA "misled the American public when you issued that press release saying that it was going to be on select commercial flights."
“And you did it at a time right before the flights were about to start," he added.
Gowadia defended her reluctance to publicly acknowledge that U.S.-Cuba air service commenced in late August without air marshals on board scheduled flights, citing security concerns. Additionally, she said Stodder “misspoke" when he told lawmakers that the new service would not start until air marshals were allowed on those flights. And she argued that the Obama administration withheld the distinction between chartered and non-chartered flights also in the interest of security.
“It is important that the exact deployments, the types of flights that are covered by FAMs, be retained for the security enterprise, of which you are definitely a part,” she told Katko, “which is why we have as many meetings with you and your staff on a regular basis.”
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Gowadia said the TSA continues to pursue agreements for allowing federal air marshals aboard flights from all foreign airports with service to the United States and that there is “no reason to believe” that Cuba will resist U.S. efforts to place the security officers on U.S.-bound planes.
“We need the partnership of our international colleagues — our nation-state partners, the airlines, the airports,” she said. “And we must continue to work with them in a collaborative way so that we can negotiate those agreements, share the right kinds of information and be able to raise the level of security across the globe. That desire is constant between you and us.”
Katko argued that the TSA’s vagueness on which Cuban flights would get air marshal protection hurts the agency’s reputation among lawmakers and the public.
“I think that is the type of thing that causes rifts in relationships and trustworthiness between agencies and oversight persons such as myself,” Katko said. “And it pains me to bring this up in a public setting. But I do it as an example of why we need more openness and more collaboration instead of obfuscation between the agencies.”
