ICE officers set to deploy to airports as delays mount : NPR

President Trump said he is sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to US airports as some air travelers face long security lines due to the partial government shutdown.

“On Monday, ICE will be heading to airports to help our amazing TSA agents who are stuck on the job,” Trump posted on social media Sunday.

Trump then blamed Democrats for the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which has entered its sixth week. Salaries of Transportation Security Administration personnel have been frozen. The White House said more than 300 TSA officers have quit, while others are not showing up to work, causing significant delays at airports across the country.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., placed the blame on Trump and criticized the planned ICE deployment.

“The last thing the American people need is to have untrained ICE agents deployed to airports across the country who could potentially brutalize them or, in some cases, kill them,” Jefferies said on CNN.

White House border czar Tom Homan is “in charge” of ICE deployment, Trump said. TSA and ICE are both part of DHS.

But it is unclear how operations at airports will work.

“It’s a work in progress,” Homan told CNN Sunday. “But we will be at the airports tomorrow helping TSA move those lines.”

Unclear duties for ICE agents

Homan said he is talking with the heads of ICE and TSA to finalize a plan, but said he hopes ICE agents will relieve TSA agents of guard duty at some terminal entries and exits.

“I haven’t seen an ICE agent look at an X-ray machine because they’re not trained in it,” Homan said. “There are some pieces of security that TSA is doing that we can remove them from those jobs and put them into specialty jobs to help move those lines.”

But Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had a different idea about what ICE agents could do at airports.

“They know how to run the X-ray machines because again they’re under Homeland Security with the TSA,” Duffy told ABC Sunday.

Duffy then warned that if Congress does not fund DHS by the end of next week, wait times at airports will get even worse, when TSA employees will miss another pay check.

“I think you’re going to see more TSA agents – as we get into Thursday, Friday, Saturday of next week – they’re going to leave or they won’t show up,” Duffy said.

very little conversation moves forward

Last week, Congress failed for the fifth time to advance a DHS funding bill, leaving TSA, FEMA and other agencies in limbo. ICE, on the other hand, still has a lot to offer The funding comes after Congress allocated billions of dollars to the agency last summer as part of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The DHS shutdown began after the deaths of two US citizens at the hands of federal immigration agents in Minnesota. The killings sparked calls from Democrats to change ICE policy: requiring judicial warrants, and banning ICE agents from wearing masks, among other proposed changes.

It was not immediately clear whether ICE agents deployed to airports would wear masks, as many of them do during immigration enforcement.

Homan said he met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill last week to discuss DHS funding, but he gave no indication that a deal was on the way.

“There needs to be more conversation because we certainly cannot abandon ICE officials and their congressionally mandated work,” Homan said Sunday.

As for ICE operations at airports, Homan said agents will continue to enforce immigration laws while deployed at terminals and security lines.