Why ICE Pulled Up to Airports and TSA Workers Are Still Working for Free
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are showing up at major airports. The federal government claims that the deployment of ICE agents at airports is to help Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents. Congress is locked in a battle over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE and TSA. Republicans have refused to negotiate with Democrats, demanding that the bill pass as is. Here is what you need to know about why ICE agents are at airports and why TSA isn’t getting paid.
ICE agents are arriving at airports in the United States
People traveling by plane in the U.S. will now have to deal with ICE agents assisting TSA agents. Security lines at major U.S. airports are stretching for hours as TSA agents call out of work or quit due to the partial government shutdown around DHS funding. In response, President Donald Trump deployed ICE agents to airports to help, but travelers are not feeling any relief from ICE’s presence.
Despite the presence of federal immigration agents, wait lines in airports remain hours-long. New York’s JFK is advising travelers that security wait times for domestic flights are two to three hours and more than three hours for international flights. The wait time is so long that JFK has stopped reporting it on its website.
“So, how do they help?” Tamika West, a traveler at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, told The Guardian. “How are they helping when the line is wrapping around every bag carrier, baggage claim and all that. How are they helping? They’re not helping. They’re making it worse.”
TSA agents are going without pay because President Trump has refused to negotiate with Democrats. Instead, President Trump, who seems unable to actually make deals, is demanding that the Senate pass the SAVE Act before any deal is reached on DHS and TSA funding. The SAVE Act is the Republican Party’s latest attempt to disenfranchise voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Airport chaos is tied to the current funding fight in Congress
Democrats and Republicans are locked in a battle over DHS funding. Democrats are calling for significant reform and accountability for ICE. Republicans refused to pass a budget that didn’t have all funding for ICE intact.
Democrats are demanding three things in order to pass the DHS funding to rein in ICE as an agency. They want stricter judicial warrant requirements to conduct arrests, ICE to wear body cameras, and to ban agents from wearing masks. Republicans, in their inaction, have sent a message that they believe those demands to be too much.
In the meantime, Democrats have offered options to fund TSA, only for Republicans to reject the efforts seven times. Democrats are refusing to back down on the demands for more accountability for ICE. The impasse was almost resolved with Democrats and Republicans agreeing on a way to pass the DHS budget without ICE.
President Trump rejected a deal that would fund TSA and ICE in separate bills
According to NBC News, Senate Majority Leader John Thune met with President Trump and laid out the plan. The Senate would pass the DHS budget without ICE included, and then ICE funding would be passed later in reconciliation. Passing the ICE budget would pass along party lines. However, President Trump rejected the deal, further prolonging the chaos in the airports.
“We can be out of this shutdown by the end of the week,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said, according to The Hill. “Here’s what we do. The Democrats are amenable to opening up everything at DHS but ICE. We should accept that. The very next day, we should file a budget resolution through reconciliation that funds ICE as we deem appropriate. We don’t need Democratic votes to do that.”
For now, the partial government shutdown continues. Airport security lines will remain long and travel plans will be disrupted until Republicans negotiate in good faith.
