What began as a social media post from President Trump on Saturday has grown quickly into a full-scale plan to deploy ICE agents to U.S. airports.
Amid a partial government shutdown, TSA lines have grown to be hours long at some U.S. airports, creating problems for travelers across the country. Call-out rates have started to increase at some airports, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said at least 376 TSA agents have quit since the partial shutdown began Feb. 14.
White House border advisor Tom Homan said that ICE plans to dispatch agents to airports as soon as Monday, and that he was working with other officials to determine where to send agents.
“It’s a work in progress,” Homan said during a Sunday appearance on CNN. “But we will be at the airports tomorrow helping TSA move those lines along.”
Homan stressed that ICE agents would provide support where possible, so that TSA staffers could better fulfill specialized positions.
“I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine, because they are not trained in that,” Homan said.
On Saturday, President Trump posted to social media, “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.”
The pushback to the White House plans was immediate.
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security, released a statement that read, “Masked, armed police at travel checkpoints is a hallmark of dystopian movies. Now, Donald Trump is threatening to bring this tool of fascism to America. He is manufacturing chaos at airports for political leverage and trying to force Democrats to accept unaccountable secret police at security checkpoints around the country.”
Also speaking to CNN on Sunday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “The last thing that the American people need are for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize or, in some instances, kill them. We’ve already seen how ICE conducts itself.”
Representatives from Los Angeles International Airport did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for Orange County’s John Wayne Airport said she was not currently aware of any communication or Homeland Security guidance on the proposed plan.
A spokesperson for San Francisco International Airport said airport officials have not yet received anything specific from Homeland Security about a deployment of ICE agents. He said SFO security personnel are not part of TSA, and as a result, the airport has not had any checkpoint backups.
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