It’s not exactly a secret that the partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security has led to exceedingly long lines at many American airports, but the White House apparently has an idea to help improve matters. MS NOW reported:
President Donald Trump and top administration officials said Sunday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will arrive at the nation’s airports on Monday to handle security at exceedingly long lines driven by a shortage of TSA workers.
‘I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday, and have already told them to, ‘GET READY.’ NO MORE WAITING, NO MORE GAMES!’ Trump said on Truth Social.
On the surface, it’s likely that many air travelers would welcome the president’s “no more waiting” message, but as the policy advances, a handful of questions hang overhead.
1. Where did this idea come from? Evidently, it was a Fox News segment on Friday night that touted the idea, which was followed by a presidential announcement on Saturday morning. There’s been no official confirmation that the former led to the latter, but given the frequency with which Trump has been influenced by the cable news network’s coverage, it’s hardly a stretch to wonder whether one led to the other.
2. What will ICE agents do at airports? This is arguably the most obvious of the questions, but there’s ongoing uncertainty about the answer. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s online announcement “came as a surprise to officials inside ICE and at DHS,” who spent the weekend “trying to figure out how it could work.”
On CNN’s “State of the Union,” White House border czar Tom Homan, who will lead the effort, conceded that the plan was hatched by Trump a day earlier and was “a work in progress” — a problem that became more acute when Homan said ICE agents would not be involved with security screening operations, right around the time Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy appeared on ABC News and said the exact opposite.
3. Are ICE agents trained for this? ICE agents increasingly lack the necessary training to be ICE agents, and they definitely aren’t trained to work as TSA officials.
Everett Kelley, who leads the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement, “ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security. TSA officers spend months learning to detect explosives, weapons, and threats specifically designed to evade detection at checkpoints — skills that require specialized instruction, hands-on practice, and ongoing recertification. You cannot improvise that. Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap. It creates one.”
In remarks from the Senate floor on Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “ICE agents, who are untrained and have caused problems everywhere they’ve gone, lurking at our airports — that’s asking for trouble. And it will certainly make the chaos at our airports worse. No one has any faith in ICE agents. They haven’t received training. They don’t know what it is to be a TSA person and do what you need to do there.”
4. Don’t ICE agents have day jobs? Evidently, the White House wants these agents to focus less on immigration enforcement and more on standing around in airports as part of a plan that doesn’t appear to exist in any meaningful way.
5. Is this all about petty, partisan spite? On Monday morning, Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, endorsed the administration’s policy, telling Fox Business, “It’ll drive the Democrats crazy.”
With this on-air comment, the congressman said the quiet part loud. This isn’t about solving a problem, this is about playing political games. Or, as MS NOW contributor Philip Bump summarized, “[T]he ICE-at-airports thing is no more complicated than Trump knowing that his opponents hate ICE and thinking that they will therefore be tearing out their hair at this devious gambit.”
My advice for air travelers: Keep showing up extra early at the airport, because there’s no reason to assume that ICE agents’ presence will make a positive difference.
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