White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday that ICE agents will deploy to airports across the country on Monday to assist TSA officers with security at airport entrances and exits where lines have been particularly long in recent weeks.
Homan told CNN’s “State of the Union” he was currently working on a plan for the deployment with the leaders of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Transportation Security Administration. He said he believed it would begin at large airports that have seen longest wait times and that agents would cover security points but wouldn’t provide help with baggage screenings.
“You know, 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 and stuff like that, relieves that TSA officer to go to screening and to reduce those lines,” Homan added.
His remarks come after President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would deploy ICE agents to airports as soon as Monday to help ease long lines.
“ICE will do the job far better than ever done before!” he wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday.
Lines at TSA checkpoints have grown in recent weeks with spring break travel underway and as a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security has dragged on since mid-February.
Homan made clear on Sunday that ICE agents will not assist with TSA security screenings.
“Wherever we can provide extra security — I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine because [they’re] not trained in that. There are certain parts of security that TSA is doing, that we can move them off those jobs and put them in the specialized jobs, help move those lines,” he said.
He added that authorities would continue immigration enforcement activities while at airports.
“We do immigration enforcement at airports all the time. So it’s not going to change. It’s not going to change,” Homan said.
The shutdown, which began when lawmakers in the Senate failed to reach an agreement to fund DHS, has led TSA agents to call out or quit en mass as they’ve gone without paychecks for weeks. More than 400 TSA agents across the country have quit since the shutdown began.
In a separate interview Sunday on ABC, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pinned long TSA lines on Democrats.
“Democrats want to see long lines at airports as leverage,” Duffy said.
The secretary added that he expects to see more TSA agents quit this week.
“I think you’re going to see more TSA agents as we come to Thursday, Friday, Saturday of next week, they’re going to quit or they’re not going to show up,” Duffy said. “I do think it’s going to get much worse, and as it gets worse, I think that puts pressure on the Congress to come to a resolution.”
By sending ICE agents to airports, “President Trump’s trying to take that leverage away and not make the American people suffer,” the transportation secretary added.
In a rare Saturday session, senators failed to pass a stand-alone bill to fund TSA, with Republicans blocking Democratic efforts in a 41-49 vote.
On Friday, Democrats blocked efforts from Republicans to fully fund DHS in a 47-37 vote that 16 senators missed.
“It is unacceptable for workers and travelers in entire airports to get taken hostage in political games, but that is what the Republicans are doing,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Saturday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., accused Democrats of prolonging the shutdown.
“Thanks to Democrats’ refusal to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Thousands of Homeland Security employees have been working without pay for more than a month. The problems of having an unfunded Homeland Security Department continue to multiply, and Democrats, well, they just seem to shrug,” he said Saturday.
Since mid-February, a bipartisan group of senators have been negotiating to find a way to reopen the agency. Democrats have insisted that any funding bill include new requirements for ICE agents, like forcing them to wear identification and blocking them from wearing face coverings.
Homan joined the negotiations on Capitol Hill last week and told CNN on Sunday that the policy demands from Democrats “haven’t changed.”
“It’s the execution of those policies that we’re talking about,” he added. “And look, we’re having good conversations, but, you know, more conversations need to be had, because we certainly can’t surrender ICE’s authorities and they’re congressionally mandated jobs. So we’re having those discussions. It’s really about policy execution more than policy.”
Republicans have said that they’re willing to negotiate with Democrats on several policy areas, including expanding the use of body-worn cameras and requiring that the footage from those cameras be preserved for congressional oversight. They’ve also said they’re open to limiting ICE enforcement at sensitive locations including hospitals and schools.
ICE is not affected by the ongoing DHS shutdown, as it received $75 billion in additional funds from the “big, beautiful bill,” the president’s major legislative package that he signed into law last year.
