US airports under strain as resignations among unpaid TSA officers stretch security during standoff

Democrats have refused to fund certain agencies within the Department of Homeland Security - which includes ICE and US Customs and Border Protection - until the GOP agrees to new restrictions on immigration enforcement. Photo / Getty Images

President Donald Trump today threatened to send United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports unless congressional Democrats agree to a GOP-backed funding deal, escalating a standoff that has already slowed security lines at airports nationwide.

In a post to Truth Social, Trump said the ICE agents would “do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia”.

Deploying agents to checkpoints nationwide would mark an unprecedented expansion of US immigration enforcement even as Democrats push for tighter limits on how those agents operate, citing concerns the Administration has fast-tracked training to expand ICE ranks.

“This is again an example, it seems to me, of the president seeking to utilise ICE in a way that achieves political goals, almost as a punishment,” said John Sandweg, a former acting director at ICE during the Obama administration. “The operations, to me, don’t seem to be designed to focus on public safety.”

Democrats have refused to fund certain agencies within the Department of Homeland Security - which includes ICE and US Customs and Border Protection - until the GOP agrees to new restrictions on immigration enforcement after federal personnel killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis.

But the agencies they’re seeking to change - ICE and CBP - have largely continued operations after receiving billions of dollars last year as part of Republicans’ tax and spending bill.

The congressional standoff has left the majority of employees at the Transportation Security Administration working without pay for more than a month, prompting an increase in callouts at airports and threatening worsening disruptions for travellers as spring break nears for millions of students.

The changes Democrats are seeking include a requirement that ICE agents get a warrant from a judge before forcefully entering homes and cease wearing masks. The Trump Administration has agreed to several requests, including the expanded use of body-worn cameras and limiting civil enforcement activities at certain locations, including hospitals, schools and places of worship.

Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer (D-New York) urged Republicans to support a Democratic measure to fund TSA separately, warning that airport delays have reached a “boiling point” as workers go unpaid and callouts rise.

“If you want TSA workers to get paid, then vote yes,” Schumer said on the Senate floor, arguing that Republicans have tied TSA funding to broader Homeland Security spending without new limits on immigration enforcement.

Trump, in a second post about the matter to Truth Social, accused Democrats of hurting “so many people with their vicious and uncaring ways”.

“What they have done to the Department of Homeland Security, our fantastic TSA Officers, and, most importantly, the great people of our Country, is an absolute disgrace,” he continued, pledging to dispatch ICE to airports on Monday local time.

Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, in a statement said Trump should focus his attention on his own party.

“Surely, the next thing people want after waiting hours in long TSA lines is to get wrongfully detained by ICE,” she said.

“Here’s an idea: instead of sidelining TSA agents and sending ICE to harass travellers, the president should tell Republicans to stop blocking our bill to pay TSA.”

Some Border Patrol agents currently work at checkpoints in airports along the southern border. Trump said that he would deploy the ICE agents if Democrats did not “immediately sign an agreement”.

That type of operation, Sandweg said, would almost certainly target a population of immigrants without criminal history.

“For every one person with criminal history you will encounter 15 people who have been here for a long time, and there are far more efficient ways of getting to that criminal population through a targeted approach,” Sandweg said.

- Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.

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