ICE agents were deployed to at least 14 airports on Monday, apparently in an effort to speed up security lines — and five days after ICE incursions, airport workers are furious. ICE agents, transportation security officers (TSOs) who work for the TSA tell WIRED that they do not have the proper certification and training to perform many tasks that can actually speed up security lines. TSA employees say they’re frustrated by the situation — and worried about what impact it could have on their future.
ICE agents have been seen moving in packs, patrolling security lines and baggage areas. He has been seen giving directions to disoriented travelers, distributing small water bottles to people waiting in line, taking photographs and often just standing around doing little else. Passengers waiting in line at security at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on Wednesday heard an airline employee complain, “ICE is here and they’re literally doing nothing to help.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that some passengers stuck in line noticed that ICE agents were being trained to check traveler IDs and boarding passes. At a hearing before the US House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday, acting TSA chief Ha Nguyen McNeil said that “the travel document checker function is one of TSA’s non-specific screen functions,” and added that ICE agents are being trained to check.
TSO says the ICE presence is frustrating for those working without pay—especially because ICE agents are being paid. “If you want to bring a tactical force into an environment that requires customer service and a mindset where you know what you’re doing, how to identify something that might be suspicious — they don’t have that training,” says Hydrick Thomas, a security officer and president of AFGE Local 2222, which covers New York and New Jersey airports.
Security officials say they are concerned for their coworkers, who haven’t received regular pay checks for half of the fiscal year due to the government shutdown last fall. Agents are worried about paying rent, mortgage, gas and child care. Food banks have been set up at several airports, including Houston, North Carolina and San Diego. In Knoxville, Tennessee, airport officials are accepting donations for employees at the Delta Airlines counter. Eleven percent of airport checkpoint workers called in Tuesday, compared with four percent before the shutdown, a federal official testified to Congress on Wednesday morning. Some airports, including Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans and New York’s John F. Kennedy, have seen daily callout rates exceed 35 percent. The agency says more than 480 TSA screeners have walked off the job since the shutdown began in February.
Long term, security officials say they are concerned that the federal government plans to replace them with other federal agents, including ICE agents or private sector employees. One mentioned Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump administration published by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which advocates completely privatizing the TSA.
“Part of the American dream that was sold to me was that working for the government was respectable and stable,” said Carlos Rodriguez, a security executive and vice president of AFGE TSA Council 100, representing Northeast airports from New Jersey to Vermont. “But it’s not respectable or stable at this point.”
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