Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been deployed to airports across the United States as the Trump administration attempts to address staffing shortages at security checkpoints during an ongoing partial federal government shutdown. The move has sparked strong warnings from civil liberties advocates, labor unions, and Democratic lawmakers, who argue that assigning immigration enforcement officers to assist with airport security could pose risks to constitutional protections, aviation safety standards, and public confidence in the travel system.
The deployment follows a shutdown that began February 14, leaving many Transportation Security Administration workers on the job without pay. According to reports, more than 400 TSA agents have left their positions since the shutdown began, while others have called out sick, contributing to long lines and delays at security checkpoints nationwide. Images circulated over the weekend showed wait times stretching hours, with lines extending into parking lots at New Orleans’ airport and out toward transit connections at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.
President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that ICE agents would assist TSA operations, writing on Truth Social that “ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful [Transportation Security Administration] Agents who have stayed on the job despite” the shutdown. ICE officers were observed Monday at major travel hubs including Atlanta, Newark, New Orleans, and New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport, with additional reports indicating their presence at multiple other airports nationwide.
The administration has indicated that ICE personnel may be used to relieve TSA officers from certain responsibilities so they can focus on screening operations. Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, confirmed the plan during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, stating: “We will be at the airports tomorrow.” Homan said the details of the deployment were still being finalized, adding that ICE officers could assist with perimeter duties such as monitoring exit points. “There’s TSA agents covering exits. People that enter through the exits. Certainly a highly trained ICE law enforcement officer can cover an exit, make sure people don’t go through those exits, enter an airport through the exits,” Homan said.
Homan emphasized that ICE agents would not conduct specialized screening functions such as interpreting X-ray scans, which require technical training specific to aviation security. “Stuff like that relieves that TSA officer to go to screening and to reduce those lines,” he said. He also acknowledged that the effort remained under development, describing the initiative as “a work in progress.”
Civil liberties advocates have expressed concern about the potential implications of expanding immigration enforcement into civilian transportation infrastructure. Naureen Shah, director of policy and government affairs for immigration at the American Civil Liberties Union, warned that the presence of armed immigration officers in airports could affect travelers’ perception of safety and their willingness to move freely within public spaces.
“Never in our history has a president deployed armed agents to the airport to inspire fear among families,” Shah said. “The American people don’t want to live in White House advisor Stephen Miller’s dystopian police state. ICE and other federal agents have already shown the cost to us all when the president deploys them on his whim to act as a domestic policing force.”
Lawmakers have also pointed to recent incidents involving immigration enforcement operations as a factor contributing to concern about expanded ICE authority. Senate Democrats have blocked funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA, while seeking policy reforms following the killings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal warned that assigning immigration officers to airport security roles could introduce additional complications to an already strained travel system. “ICE agents at airports will only aggravate delays and lines—disrupting checks, interrogating travelers, dragging parents from children, detaining citizens, brutalizing families, shooting, and even killing,” he said. “Brutal, lawless tactics common in communities across the country by masked, unidentified agents, violating basic rights—no way to help TSA or travelers.”
House Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries echoed concerns about the use of immigration agents in domestic security roles. “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,” Jeffries said. “We have already seen how ICE conducts itself.”
Labor representatives have also criticized the plan, arguing that aviation security requires specialized training and certification that immigration officers do not possess. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 50,000 TSA workers, warned that substituting immigration officers for trained aviation personnel could create operational risks. “ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security,” Kelley said.
Kelley also emphasized that TSA employees have continued working despite not receiving paychecks during the shutdown. “Our members at TSA have been showing up every day, without a paycheck, because they believe in the mission of keeping the flying public safe,” Kelley said. “They deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be.”
Flight attendant unions issued a joint statement raising concerns about the broader aviation safety environment during the shutdown. The unions criticized what they described as the failure to resolve funding issues affecting TSA workers and warned that the deployment of immigration agents could create additional tension in already crowded airport spaces. “This latest threat of ICE invasion at the airports is another distraction from solutions that protect Americans,” the statement said. “Flight attendants will not allow the TSA … and the frontline [security officers] who keep us safe to be used as pawns in this dangerous game, nor will we fly in an aviation system that doesn’t put our safety and security first.”
Some policy analysts have interpreted the reassignment of ICE personnel as potentially reducing the agency’s presence in immigration enforcement operations elsewhere. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, suggested that shifting agents to airports could alter enforcement patterns. “To me, this does a lot more to slow down ICE than anything,” Reichlin-Melnick wrote in a social media post. “I’ll take that deal.”
Political reporting has also indicated that the deployment could affect negotiations surrounding Department of Homeland Security funding. According to Punchbowl News, Senate Majority Leader John Thune proposed funding the Department of Homeland Security without allocating funds for ICE in order to ensure TSA workers would be paid, but the proposal was rejected. “Trump said no, according to multiple sources,” Punchbowl News reported.
Journalist Rachel Bade reported that some Democratic officials view the airport deployment as a sign of political vulnerability for the administration amid ongoing shutdown tensions. One senior Democratic official told Bade: “Great—do it! Let’s fuck around and find out.” Another Democratic source predicted that “armed agents at airports will crush tourism and freak people out.”
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski also questioned the decision, stating that resolving funding disputes affecting TSA employees would be a more direct approach to addressing airport delays. “Bad idea,” Murkowski said. “What we need to do is, we need to get the DHS issues resolved, we need to get the TSA agents paid.”
As the partial shutdown continues, the long-term role of immigration enforcement officers in airport operations remains unclear. Homan stated that priority would be given to large airports experiencing wait times of up to three hours, saying that the administration expected to develop a more detailed deployment plan.
“It’s a work in progress,” Homan said.
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