Armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents fanned out across some of the nation's busiest airports Monday morning, stepping in to help overwhelmed TSA workers who have gone weeks without a paycheck. The deployment, ordered by President Trump and coordinated by White House border czar Tom Homan, landed at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson, New York's JFK, and Louis Armstrong International in Kenner, Louisiana, among other hubs.
Photos from Atlanta showed ICE officers standing among snaking lines of travelers, some of whom had waited nearly six hours the day before just to clear the main security checkpoint. At one point yesterday, only two TSA agents were available mid-afternoon to check IDs at that checkpoint.
The cause of this mess is no mystery. Congress has failed, for more than a month, to fund the Department of Homeland Security. DHS funding lapsed on February 13 after lawmakers couldn't agree on immigration enforcement reforms. Since then, hundreds of thousands of homeland security workers, including TSA screeners, Secret Service agents, and Coast Guard personnel, have worked without pay. Hundreds of TSA agents have called in sick or quit outright as the financial strain piles up. The U.S. Sun reported that some TSA officials had even resorted to selling their own blood to raise cash.
That's the backdrop. And into it walked ICE.
Tom Homan made clear the deployment has limits. ICE officers won't be running X-ray machines or conducting baggage screening. "I don't see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine, because we're not trained in that," Homan said. Instead, immigration enforcement officers will guard exit lanes, check passenger IDs, manage lines, and handle crowd control, tasks that free up trained TSA screeners to focus on actual security work.
DHS said "hundreds" of ICE officers would be sent out, with priority going to large airports where travelers faced waits of three hours or more, AP News reported. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens confirmed the deployment to his city's airport the night before, issuing a statement that officers from both ICE and Homeland Security Investigations would arrive Monday morning.
Fox News reported that agents also showed up at airports in Houston and Newark. The New York Post detailed an even wider footprint: LaGuardia, Chicago O'Hare, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and San Juan all received ICE personnel Monday. The Post also reported that more than a third of TSA staff in New York City, Houston, and Atlanta were absent or calling in sick.
Trump told reporters the airport deployment was his own idea, one he first discussed with Homan. "ICE was my idea," the president said. And he signaled willingness to escalate: "And if that's not enough, I'll bring in the National Guard."
Trump also weighed in on how the agents should look. In a Truth Social post, he drew a line between ICE operations hunting dangerous fugitives, where masks are acceptable, and airport duty, where he wants agents visible and identifiable. Just The News reported that Trump wrote: "I would greatly appreciate, however, NO MASKS, when helping our Country out of the Democrat caused MESS at the airports, etc. Thank you!"
The directive fits a broader pattern. The administration wants the public to see federal law enforcement working, not hiding behind balaclavas. It's a deliberate contrast with the chaos the shutdown has created, and with the political class responsible for it.
Democrats in Congress have said they won't fund Homeland Security unless new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations. Their stated reason: the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year. That demand has locked up DHS appropriations since mid-February, leaving the department in a partial shutdown that has now dragged on for over a month.
House Republicans and Democrats remain in a heated budget fight, with talks happening behind closed doors. But Trump has made his position plain. In a lengthy Truth Social post, the president declared he would accept no deal unless Democrats vote for his Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, the SAVE America Act, which cleared the House last month on a mostly party-line vote and has since stalled in the Senate.
Trump's post laid out the stakes in blunt terms:
"I don't think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass 'THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.' It is far more important than anything else we are doing in the Senate, and that includes giving these same terrible people, the Dems (who are to blame for this mess!), a Five Billion Dollar cut in ICE funding, a deal which, even when disguised as something else, is unacceptable to me and the American people."
The SAVE America Act would require states to obtain proof of citizenship before registering someone to vote in federal elections. It would mandate photo ID at polling places. If a voter's ID lacks a photo, the person would need to provide the last four digits of a Social Security number or prove citizenship another way. Only five states currently issue IDs that denote U.S. citizenship on REAL ID cards. Trump called the bill's passage "far more important than anything else we are doing in the Senate."
He urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune to "clearly identify those few 'Republicans' that are Voting against AMERICA," warned they "will never be elected again," and called for killing the filibuster and staying in Washington through Easter if necessary.
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski called the airport deployment a "bad idea." Speaking to reporters at the Capitol, she said the real answer is straightforward.
"We need to get the DHS issues resolved, we need to get the TSA agents paid. Do you really want to have even additional tensions on top of what we are already facing?"
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 50,000 TSA employees, condemned Trump's plan. His argument: ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security. That's true as far as it goes. But Homan already conceded the point. Nobody is asking ICE to screen luggage. They're checking IDs and watching doors so the screeners who are trained can do their jobs.
The real question Murkowski and Kelley dodge is simple: Who created the staffing crisis? Congress did. Democrats held DHS funding hostage to extract immigration restrictions that have nothing to do with airport security. The result is TSA agents selling blood plasma, travelers missing flights, and a system buckling under political gamesmanship. As the TSA staffing crisis has deepened over the DHS funding battle, the administration chose to act rather than wait for a Congress that can't find the votes to keep its own security apparatus running.
The airport deployment fits into a wider pattern of the Trump administration using every available federal tool to enforce law and maintain order. The Justice Department recently dismantled an Iranian regime cyber propaganda network targeting Americans, and seventy House Republicans have pressed the administration to crack down on illegal Chinese vape imports. The common thread is a willingness to use existing authority rather than wait for a dysfunctional legislature to act.
At the airports, the calculus is practical. Travelers stuck in six-hour lines don't care about jurisdictional turf wars between agencies. They care about getting through security. If ICE agents standing at exit doors and checking boarding passes can free up two more screeners at a checkpoint that had only two to begin with, the math speaks for itself.
Democrats created this crisis by holding DHS funding hostage. The administration sent reinforcements. Critics can call it a bad idea all they want, but the people waiting in those lines aren't hearing a better one.
