Will ICE leave airports once TSA agents get paid? Border czar says: ‘We’ll see’
Even when Transportation Security Administration agents get paid, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents may still be at airports, Border czar Tom Homan said Sunday.
In an interview on CBS News, Homan said there will be an ICE presence “until airports feel like they’re 100% in a posture where they can do normal operations.”
“If less TSA agents come back, that means we’ll keep more ICE agents there,” Homan said. “The President has been clear. He wants to secure those airports especially… in an increased threat posture.”
He said the same on CNN when asked if ICE will leave by anchor Jake Tapper.
“We’ll see. It depends how many TSA agents come back to work,” Homan said. “I’m working very closely with the TSA administrator and the ICE Director to decide what airport needs what.”
Hundreds of agents have quit TSA amid a partial government shutdown where they aren’t getting paid. Thousands more have called out from work.
The staffing shortage backed up airport security lines, forcing travelers to either arrive hours before their flights or miss them entirely.
President Donald Trump, on Friday, signed an emergency memorandum directing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to shift funds toward paying TSA agents.
Homan told CNN he spoke to Mullin, and there’s a plan to get the agents paid, “hopefully by tomorrow (Monday), Tuesday.”
“It’s good news, because these TSA officers are struggling,” Homan said. “They can’t feed their families or pay the rent. Your heart goes out to them, because they’re sitting there right now, working very hard and not being paid by members of Congress.”
Funding lapsed for the Department of Homeland Security in February, after lawmakers failed to come to an agreement on legislation. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), though, still have separate funding through President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
The gridlock centers around ICE. Democrats don’t want to fully fund DHS without new guardrails for federal agents, citing the deaths of multiple U.S. citizens by ICE officers, as well as what they say are incidences of racial profiling.
As the shutdown continued, Trump announced the deployment of ICE agents to airports across the country to help manage lines.
However, passengers still reported long wait times and lengthy delays, with some telling The Washington Post that officers did not appear to be doing much.
At a House Rules Committee hearing on Friday, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-CT., called for ICE to be taken out of airports, saying “they’re doing nothing and getting paid, while TSA workers are not getting paid.”
DHS has pushed back on the characterization that agents are not effective.
Homan, on CNN, said they are “protecting the exit lanes, doing identification checks, plugging the security holes.”
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
