A Haitian restaurant at Miami International Airport is offering free meals to TSA agents, who have been working without pay since the partial government shutdown began in December.
“You say to yourself: ‘What can I do to help,” Chef Créole owner Wilkinson Sejour told the Miami Herald on Monday. “I guess a sandwich would help.”
Chef Créole, the only Haitian restaurant at Miami’s airport, may have given away 350 free meals by the end of the day Monday, said Sejour. TSA workers who could not get away from their posts had their meals, which consisted of pork or fish, delivered to them by hand trucks.
The government shutdown, which began on Dec. 22, has impacted about 800,000 federal workers. President Donald Trump has said he would not sign any funding legislation that would reopen the government unless the Democrats agree to $5 billion for a wall on the southern border. The shutdown is now the longest in American history.
Sejour told the Herald that 90 percent of his business comes from airport employees and that the shutdown has affected his bottom line. He was told by workers they could not visit Chef Créole because they could no longer afford to do so.
“I said bull,” Sejour said. “We’ll fund this.”
