American citizens who thought they were immune from reckoning with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been rudely awakened by the newest travel nightmare: ICE is in the airport.
As if the prospect of playing high-altitude roulette weren’t stressful enough, now some of the nation’s busiest airports are staffed by ICE agents, purportedly to fill gaps left by more than 450 Transportation Security Administration officers who, largely unpaid since mid-February, have called it quits and gone home. As of Monday, more than 3,200 TSA officers, or nearly 11 percent of the force, didn’t show up for work. Those still at their jobs are working without pay — and we thank you for your service.
It’s hard to fathom the genius “thinking” behind the decision to deploy ICE, possibly the most despised federal agency, to the combustible environment of overcrowded airports, long lines and irate travelers coping with the partial government shutdown that began earlier this year.
Adding to the travel anxiety, a Canadian aircraft crashed Sunday into an emergency vehicle upon landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, killing two pilots and injuring dozens of passengers. Two air traffic controllers were in the tower at the time and at least one was doing several jobs, said National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy.
So, what are your spring break plans this year? Staycations have never been so appealing.
To paraphrase President Donald Trump, I’m sure there are fine people in ICE, but they’ve done little to earn the confidence of the American public. After two citizens — Renée Good and Alex Pretti — were shot and killed by impulse-challenged federal agents, one ICE and the others Border Patrol, one wonders what provocation might prompt a lethal response in the overwrought environment of exhausted, frustrated crowds trapped in soulless airports. Indeed, assaults on TSA agents have increased 500 percent since the shutdown began, TSA Deputy Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said Wednesday during a House committee hearing.
At some airports, wait times exceed four hours. Instead of doing the jobs of TSA agents, for which they’re untrained, ICE agents in Atlanta and elsewhere reportedly are mostly standing and watching lines. This might be a baby step forward in behavior modification.
Those hurt most by Washington’s near-perennial budget war are the TSA agents. While a traveler’s struggle to stay sane in a crowded airport is not for the weak-willed, it doesn’t compare to the hardships facing agents trying to pay bills and feed a family without a regular paycheck for six weeks and counting. Some have been sleeping in their cars at the airport to save on gas. Others have lost child care. Some face eviction.
And to think, ICE is partly the cause of it all. Deadly violence in Minnesota, combined with other unacceptable spectacles, led Democrats to demand reforms as part of their budget negotiations. Both sides are digging in their heels as airport lines grow longer, while the most vexing question is whether their standoff is putting security at risk. The answer, according to McNeill, is yes.
A pox on all their houses, I say. Republicans have been unwilling to fund Homeland Security, which includes ICE, while debating Democratic demands for ICE reforms. When Republicans tried to extract ICE from the funding bill to be litigated separately, Democrats said no. As of Thursday, officials were trying to figure out how to get TSA agents paid without coming to terms on the other issues.
Some people who watched the ICE occupation of Minneapolis may find common ground with Democrats, whose demands seem reasonable: no masks, warrants before entering a home, wear a badge so people can identify the officer arresting them, wear a body cam, stay away from sensitive places such as churches and schools, and wear standardized uniforms so agents don’t look like randos searching for someone with brown skin to beat up. Oh, and no racial profiling.
Civilized societies require these standards of armed men and women who have authority over their fellow citizens. The key word from the right’s perspective is “citizen.” Most of the migrants under siege aren’t legal citizens, which, to many Republicans, disqualifies them from due process, even if many of them have lived, worked and paid taxes in the United States for decades. MAGA Republicans may view this argument favorably, but it fails on every value that Americans have let guide them in their treatment of fellow human beings, regardless of citizenship.
We’re better than this, or we used to be, even if many of our elected officials have forgotten.
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