Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents began deploying to some U.S. airports on Monday as a partial government shutdown caused shortages of Transportation Security Administration officers who have resigned or called out of work. At the same time, airport security wait times have skyrocketed.
ICE agents are currently stationed in 14 U.S. airports, according to White House border czar Tom Homan, who is managing their deployment. He told reporters that the agents are there to “help Americans transit those lines” and blamed Democrats for the funding delays fueling the shutdown, although he declined to share details about the status of negotiations on Capitol Hill.
Asked about any ICE arrests in airports, Homan reiterated that their primary mission is to help TSA with security, but “if they see criminal activity, just like a law enforcement officer, they should take action.”
Immigration agents arrived Monday at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where they were seen patrolling the lines outside security checkpoints, CBS News correspondent Skyler Henry reported. Excessively long security lines snaked all the way to the parking lots outside of airports in cities including Atlanta, New York City and New Orleans over the weekend as TSA officers were absent.
TSA staff have gone without paychecks since the partial shutdown began in mid-February. More than 11.5% of TSA officers nationwide called out on Saturday alone, which was the highest share since the partial shutdown began.
ICE agents were photographed on Monday morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. They are also expected at Pittsburgh International Airport, CBS Pittsburgh reported, while New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong International and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental and William P. Hobby airports said ICE officers would also be supporting their TSA operations, according to the Associated Press.
Adam Gray / REUTERS 
At Harstfield-Jackson, which is the nation’s busiest air travel hub, staff handed out water to crowds of people over the weekend who had been advised to arrive at the airport four hours ahead of their flights’ scheduled departure times. One of traveler, Julie Kwurt, said she and her husband followed those instructions but were still forced to rebook after missing their flight anyway.
“We’ve just been standing and standing,” Kwurt said. “Our feet are killing us, and my husband has a heart condition on top of that.”
Some travelers at Hartsfield-Jackson faced wait times of up to six hours of the weekend, CBS Atlanta reported. They shared mixed reactions to the presence of ICE agents at the airport on Monday, with some telling the station that they support the deployment, and others saying they believe “it would be more beneficial just to have the TSA staff here.”
Over the weekend, President Trump said his administration would send ICE agents to some of the airports that have been hit particularly hard by TSA resignations and absences. The president wrote in a Truth Social post Monday that he would “greatly appreciate” it if ICE agents did not wear masks at airports.
In addition to TSA officers calling out of work, hundreds have resigned as Congress continues to fail to reach a deal on funding the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of TSA.
Although ICE agents are supposed to help speed up the security process, they are largely assisting with crowd control at the airports. Critics have argued that they lack the training necessary to be responsible for security screenings. Democrats, especially, are slamming the move to deploy them in place of TSA officers, since the tactics used for immigration enforcement are some of the main reasons for the government shutdown in the first place.
Alyssa Pointer / REUTERS 
Everett Kelly, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents TSA officers, said in a statement that they “deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be.”
Kelly pointed out that TSA officers undergo specific training that ICE agents lack.
CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave reported that the agents may be somewhat limited in how much they can help with airport security unless they have already been issued Security Identification Display Area, or SIDA, badges, which are credentials allowing airport security employees past checkpoints.
