As Congress has yet to fund the Department of Homeland Security over disagreement concerning the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, TSA agents remain unpaid, and airports continue to see long security lines. Now, President Donald Trump has responded by sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to perform airport security functions, a move being defended by his administration, while critics argue that it could lead to dangerous escalations at airports and worsen the problems associated with aggressive immigration enforcement.
Trump sends ICE agents to airports, though their purpose remains unclear
Trump first announced his ICE plan for airports in a social media post on Saturday. “If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before,” Trump posted. Consistent with his tactics of personally attacking political opponents and singling out ethnic groups such as Somalis for attack, Trump said that ICE agents’ duties in airports would include “the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia, who have totally destroyed, with the approval of a corrupt Governor, Attorney General, and Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, the once Great State of Minnesota.”
Trump officials confirmed the plan, though they were less clear about what exact duties ICE would perform. “I have no idea what we’re doing,” an unnamed source within DHS told CBS News, which reported that officials were caught by surprise by Trump’s announcement. As an example of the confusion, Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” indicated that ICE agents would not be performing functions such as running x-ray machines, while Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy implied that this specific function could be done by ICE.
TSA remains unfunded, airport lines grow as political impasse over ICE continues
So far, it is unclear how much of an impact ICE agents are having and if they are easing security line traffic or making it worse. Because of the shutdown, flyers have been waiting for hours to clear security at major airports, with some checkpoints entirely shut down as TSA agents have either quit or called in sick during this period in which they are not receiving salaries. As of Monday, ICE agents had been deployed to airports in Atlanta, Chicago and New York, with additional deployments expected for Houston, New Orleans and Pittsburgh, among other cities. In Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where ICE agents were deployed Monday morning, early morning security lines were seen backing up to baggage claim areas and snaking outside the airport, with many passengers standing in line for hours to clear security.
The ICE move comes as Democrats continue to refuse to fund DHS without significant reforms to the ways ICE and other immigration agencies operate, pointing to controversial crackdowns in major cities and the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Despite the partial government shutdown, the Trump administration, meanwhile, is holding fast to its policies and refusing to negotiate changes to its aggressive approach. Other conservatives are attempting to offer potential solutions. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has proposed separating ICE and Border Patrol funding from other DHS operations and holding a vote on funding the rest of DHS operations, a proposal that Democrats had previously offered that was rejected by their GOP colleagues. And billionaire Elon Musk has offered to personally pay the salaries of TSA agents during the shutdown. Trump on Monday said he would “love it” if Musk paid TSA workers during the shutdown. “Let him do that,” Trump said to reporters Monday morning, Newsweek reported. The president also indicated that if the addition of ICE agents did not lessen delays in airports, he would also mobilize National Guard troops to supplement TSA agents. These developments leave the state of air travel and the larger issues of DHS funding unresolved. It remains to be seen whether Trump’s plan to send in federal agents, and now possibly National Guard forces, will do much or anything to resolve long delays for passengers going through airport security. And it is unclear whether or not Democrats and Republicans are closer to deals that could restore pay to TSA agents or address concerns about ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies.