ICE Agents Head to Airports Monday as TSA Faces Shutdown Crisis
With 50,000 TSA officers unpaid for five weeks and security lines stretching hours long, the White House is deploying ICE agents to airports as the 37-day shutdown deepens.
At Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport last Friday, families stood in security lines for more than three hours — not because of a terror threat, but because nearly half the scheduled TSA agents never showed up.
President Donald Trump on Sunday confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will deploy Monday to airports across the country as the Homeland Security Department shutdown stretches into its 37th day.
The deployment lands squarely in the heart of spring break travel. Industry analysts project 2.8 million daily travelers during March and April, flooding checkpoints already buckling under mass absenteeism.
White House border czar Tom Homan told CNN's "State of the Union" that ICE officers will guard exit doors and manage passenger lines — tasks that require no TSA screening certification.
"We will be at the airports tomorrow, helping TSA move those lines along," Homan said. "We're simply there to help TSA do their jobs in areas that don't need their specialized expertise."
The human cost behind those empty checkpoints is stark. The 50,000 TSA officers have gone unpaid for more than five weeks. At least 400 have resigned since the partial government shutdown began Feb. 14, according to DHS figures.
Call-out rates at some airports have spiked to 50 percent or higher. Philadelphia officials shut three security checkpoints last week, overwhelmed by staff shortages that show no sign of easing.
Trump announced the ICE plan on Truth Social Saturday, attacking Democrats he said are "only focused on protecting hard line criminals who have entered our Country illegally."
"ICE will do the job far better than ever done before," Trump wrote. "No more waiting, no more games."
Senate Democrats condemned the move. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN that deploying "untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country" could lead them to "brutalize or, in some instances, kill" passengers.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Americans would soon see "which Senators WANT to pay TSA workers and end the chaos at our airports, and which Senators are going to BLOCK TSA funding yet again."
Republicans, too, acknowledge that the clock is running out. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) warned that if negotiators cannot reach a deal "really quickly, things are going to get worse and worse."
Stewart Baker, a former Homeland Security policy official under President George W. Bush, told CBC that using ICE agents may be slower than deploying trained screeners, "but it would be better than having nobody."
For the workers caught in the middle, the shutdown has stripped away the basics. Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of AFGE TSA Council 100, said employees across the country have reported bank accounts at zero — or worse.
"No funds for daycare, no funds for food," Jones said.
TSA workers missed their first full paycheck March 13. A second missed paycheck looms March 27, five days away.
The Senate failed a fifth attempt to advance a DHS funding bill March 20. The vote fell 13 short of the 60 needed to move forward. Only one Democrat — Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — voted yes.
Elon Musk offered Saturday to cover TSA salaries himself. The White House did not immediately respond.
On the ground, security veterans are skeptical the gap can be bridged by goodwill alone. George Borek, an Atlanta TSA officer and union steward, questioned whether untrained personnel could handle what trained screeners do every day.
"If you bring people in there, they are not trained, they don't know what they're looking for, then certainly it could be a problem," Borek told CNN.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy put it more bluntly: what travelers are experiencing now, he warned, looks like "child's play" compared to what comes next if lawmakers fail to act.