Folks wait in a TSA line on the John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport, Sunday, March 22, 2026, in New York. (AP Photograph/Yuki Iwamura)
Yuki Iwamura/AP/AP
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Yuki Iwamura/AP/AP
President Trump mentioned he’s sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers to U.S. airports as some air vacationers face longer safety traces because of the partial authorities shutdown.
“On Monday, ICE might be going to airports to assist our great TSA Brokers who’ve stayed on the job,” Trump posted on social media Sunday.
Trump then blamed Democrats for the shutdown of the Division of Homeland Safety, which has entered its sixth week and paused paychecks for Transportation Safety Administration employees. The White Home has mentioned greater than 300 TSA officers have stop, whereas others aren’t displaying as much as work, inflicting important delays at airports nationwide.
Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., threw blame again at Trump and criticized the deliberate ICE deployment.
“The very last thing that the American folks want are for untrained ICE brokers to be deployed at airports all throughout the nation, probably to brutalize or in some situations kill them,” Jeffries mentioned on CNN.
Tom Homan, the White Home border czar, “is in cost” of the ICE deployment, Trump mentioned. TSA and ICE are each a part of DHS.
Nevertheless it stays unclear how the operation will work at airports.
“It is a work in progress,” Homan mentioned on CNN Sunday. “However we might be at airports tomorrow serving to TSA transfer these traces alongside.”
Unclear duties for ICE brokers
Homan mentioned he’s speaking with the heads of ICE and TSA to finalize a plan, however mentioned he expects ICE brokers to alleviate TSA brokers of guard obligation at some terminal entries and exits.
“I do not see an ICE agent taking a look at an X-ray machine as a result of they are not skilled in that,” Homan mentioned. “There are particular elements of safety that TSA is doing that we are able to transfer them off these jobs and put them within the specialised jobs, assist transfer these traces.”
However Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy appeared to have a distinct thought of what ICE brokers may do at airports.
“They know easy methods to run the X-ray machines as a result of they’re once more underneath Homeland Safety with TSA,” Duffy instructed ABC Sunday.
Duffy then warned that wait instances at airports would get a lot worse if Congress would not fund DHS by the tip of subsequent week, when TSA employees are set to overlook one other paycheck.
“I feel you are going to see extra TSA brokers — as we come to Thursday, Friday, Saturday of subsequent week — they are going to stop or they are not going to indicate up,” Duffy mentioned.
Scant negotiations progress
Final week, Congress didn’t advance a DHS funding invoice for the fifth time, leaving TSA, FEMA and different businesses within the lurch. ICE, then again, nonetheless has loads of funding after Congress allotted the the company billions of {dollars} final summer season as a part of Republicans’ One Large Stunning Invoice Act.
The DHS shutdown began following the deaths of two U.S. residents by the hands of federal immigration brokers in Minnesota. The killings sparked calls for from Democrats to alter ICE coverage: a judicial warrant requirement, and a ban on ICE brokers carrying masks, amongst different proposed modifications.
It was not instantly clear whether or not ICE brokers deployed to airports would put on masks, as a lot of them do throughout immigration enforcement.
Homan mentioned he met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill final week to debate DHS funding, however he gave no indication {that a} deal was nearing.
“Extra conversations have to be had as a result of we definitely cannot give up ICE’s authorities and their congressionally mandated job,” Homan mentioned Sunday.
As for the ICE operation at airports, Homan mentioned brokers will proceed to implement immigration legal guidelines as they deploy to terminals and safety traces.
