By Jack Phillips
Border czar Tom Homan said on March 23 that immigration officers deployed to U.S. airports to support Transportation Security Administration (TSA) operations will be able to make arrests in certain cases.
“We’re going to arrest criminals going through the airport. We’re going to look for human trafficking, sex trafficking, money smuggling. We’re going to be at the airports, working with our brothers and sisters from TSA,” Homan said during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Monday evening.
Starting Monday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were sent to 14 airports to help TSA agents, who are currently working without pay due to an ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown. Homan and other officials have said they are there to help travelers while they are undergoing security screenings at airports.
Funding for DHS lapsed on Feb. 14, when Democratic lawmakers blocked funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection without changes to their operations after federal officers shot and killed two people during protests in Minneapolis in January.
Routine funding for TSA agents’ pay has lapsed, but ICE and other immigration enforcement personnel are still receiving paychecks amid the shutdown under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that became law last year.
ICE agents were deployed at the Chicago-O’Hare International Airport, Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport (New York), LaGuardia Airport (New York), Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (San Juan, Puerto Rico), Newark Liberty International Airport, Philadelphia International Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Pittsburgh International Airport, Southwest Florida International Airport (Fort Myers, Florida), and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Homan told reporters at the White House on Monday that more airports will see ICE deployments to help with security.
“We’re there to help the American people transit those lines that are taking hours, because the Democrats shut the government down, because the Democrats are punishing the men and women of TSA, because they don’t like immigration enforcement,” Homan said.
In response, the TSA said in a statement on social media that the agency is “grateful to our DHS brothers and sisters at ICE for stepping up to support our officers,” but added that DHS must be fully funded to end what it described as “chaos” at U.S. airports.
Democrats continue to demand major changes to federal immigration operations, including policy changes that would require ICE officers to get a warrant from a judge before forcefully entering homes, to no longer allow officers to wear masks, and to require that they provide clear identifying information on uniforms.
A letter released by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) last week again criticized ICE but proposed a funding package to pay non-immigration-related DHS workers, such as TSA agents.
“House Democrats will continue to demand changes to ICE that are bold, meaningful, and transformational,” he wrote. “Immigration enforcement in this country should be fair, just, and humane. That is not what is happening right now.”
In the meantime, President Donald Trump said on Monday that he would not sign any bills, including funding for DHS, unless Democrats back an election measure known as the SAVE America Act, which would require identification and other documentation to vote.
In a Truth Social post, the president again called on Senate Republicans to terminate the legislative filibuster to pass the legislation, as it currently remains stalled in the upper chamber.
