Tyler Perry did not post about it first. He showed up.
On Friday, March 27, the Atlanta-based filmmaker and media entrepreneur distributed $1,000 gift cards to 250 Transportation Security Administration officers working at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, a $250,000 gesture directed at workers who have gone weeks without a paycheck during a partial government shutdown that began February 14.
The gift cards went through a formal legal approval process, as federal regulations govern what TSA employees are permitted to accept. Aaron Barker, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 554 union representing TSA officers in Georgia, confirmed to PEOPLE that Perry’s donation cleared the required review through TSA before distribution.
What TSA workers have been living through
The partial shutdown has hit TSA officers with particular force. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security stalled in Congress amid broader disagreements over immigration enforcement spending, leaving TSA employees in a category of federal workers required to report to work regardless of whether paychecks are coming.
TSA has said that officers have collectively missed close to $1 billion in wages since the shutdown began. The financial strain has pushed some workers to extremes. Reports have surfaced of officers sleeping in their cars and donating blood or plasma to cover basic expenses. More than 480 officers across the country have quit outright because they could not afford to continue working without compensation.
At major airports, callout rates among officers have climbed to between 40 and 50%, producing the kind of security lines that have stretched through terminals and into ticketing halls, with travelers at Hartsfield-Jackson among those waiting hours to clear the checkpoint.
Perry’s first attempt was blocked
Perry initially planned to distribute cash directly to officers at the airport. That approach ran into federal policy restrictions that prohibit cash donations on airport property. Rather than walk away, he came back with gift cards, a format that could satisfy the legal requirements while still delivering direct financial relief to workers who needed it immediately.
The cards cover practical expenses such as groceries and gasoline, the kind of week-to-week costs that pile up quickly when a paycheck stops arriving.
Washington moved, but slowly
Perry’s gesture arrived as the legislative situation remained unresolved. The U.S. Senate passed a measure in the early hours of March 27 to fund DHS and end the TSA portion of the shutdown, but the House rejected the bill later that day.
President Trump announced on March 26 that he would sign an executive order directing newly confirmed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to pay TSA agents immediately, using preexisting funds to cover the gap. TSA employees could begin seeing paychecks as early as March 30, according to reporting from the Washington Post.
For workers who have already endured more than six weeks without wages, the executive order offered relief, but the timing meant it came after Perry had already done what he could on his own.
Perry is 56 years old and has been based in Atlanta for most of his career, building a studio complex and media operation that has made him one of the more prominent figures in the city’s entertainment and business community. His connection to the airport’s workers, many of whom are Atlanta residents, made the gesture feel local as much as it was national.
