I'd highly doubt that they were doing any serious vetting of these folks. I know for a clearance like I have (a TS//SCI) costs upwards of $20-30k, depending how often you've moved, where you lived, who you knew (foreign nationals and the like) and so forth. The threshholds for lower clearances are less and can take as little as a couple weeks to a month (secret and below). Maybe costs a grand or two, if that. These just aren't cost effective for jobs that don't pay all that much and have a high turnover.

The type of clearance that service employees get at airports, and probably TSA folks get as well, isn't much more than a rap sheet review done by the FBI and a fingerprint test. I had one of these done when I adopted my son and it was $50. Maybe a credit pull on top of that. Probably still less than $100. If it's clean, they're hired.

DHS simply doesn't have the money or time to do a thorough check, so I don't think it's getting done.

Super