Starting Monday, the Trump administration will send ICE agents to airports across the country, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan announced Sunday.
Funding for both ICE and TSA’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, elapsed on Feb. 14 after the Senate failed to pass a funding bill for the department.
Democrats have refused to pass a modest DHS funding bill changes made to the rules governing ICE in its crackdown on immigrants, especially in light of the murders of Rene Bueno and Alex Pretti by ICE agents.
The lack of funding has put enormous financial pressure on TSA workers, who are expected to work without pay for the second time in six months, the first being during The longest total government shutdown in US history..
A third of TSA agents working at half of the nation’s busiest airports were out of work Saturday. With airports working at reduced capacity, travelers have encountered Incredibly long lines at security checkpoints.
While Democrats held firm on DHS funding requirements, Trump threatened the deployment of ICE on his Truth Social account on Saturday, stating that agents would not only assist the TSA but also arrest immigrants, “with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia.”
The union representing TSA officers quickly issued a statement against the decision, saying ICE agents will create more problems than they could solve.
“ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security,” Everett Kelly, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in the statement. “Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a void, it creates one.”
There is inconsistency on the part of administration officials about what exactly ICE agents are well trained to do.
Homan said cnn that TSA agents will handle “non-critical functions” that don’t require “specialized experiences…like securing an exit so they can get back to the scanning machines and move people faster.”
Meanwhile, Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said ABC News that ICE agents have adequate security training and that “they operate those same types of security machines at the southern border.”
Ultimately, there is still no clear plan for how the rollout will take place tomorrow. Homan told CNN he hopes a “well thought out plan” will be finalized before deployment, which is a couple of hours away.
The union maintains there is a better way to address the problem: paying workers.
“Our TSA members have been showing up every day, without pay, because they believe in the mission of keeping the flying public safe,” Kelly said. “They deserve to be paid, not replaced by armed, untrained officers who have proven how dangerous they can be.”
Both ICE and TSA are funded by DHS, but ICE was not affected by the partial government shutdown thanks to the $75 billion received from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill last year. Democrats, such as House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have suggested funding TSA and other agencies under DHS by separating funding from ICE and Customs and Border Protection, but the bill failed in the Senate when Republicans and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman voted against it.
Although most Republicans are against separating ICE and CBP from a DHS funding bill, some, like Senator Ted Cruz, have recently begun to support the idea. Republican Sen. John Kennedy said that if a DHS bill passes without immigration agencies, ICE could then be funded through a reconciliation bill that could pass with 50 votes in the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats.
