By Zachary Stieber and Jacob Burg
FORT MYERS, Fla.—Federal immigration agents on March 23 deployed to airports as travelers faced security delays due to a lack of new funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents went to the international airport in Atlanta and airports in New York City, among others, to help Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel deal with long lines amid a showdown over funding for DHS.
ICE agents were seen at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Florida, on March 23. The agents appeared to be observing travelers filing in and out of the airport’s security checkpoints and baggage claim area, without directly helping TSA officers screen passengers and luggage.
Breaking from recent protocol, all of the roughly two dozen ICE agents seen at Southwest Florida International Airport on March 23 were unmasked.
President Donald Trump said that despite being a “big believer” in ICE wearing masks while conducting immigration enforcement operations, he suggested that the agents take off their masks while assisting TSA in airports during the ongoing DHS shutdown.
“The American public is going through a big struggle right now, and we just put ICE in charge, and they’re helping TSA—the agents—and they’re working together so far very well,” Trump said while speaking in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 23.
“If we don’t have enough, we will bring out the National Guard,” the president said.
Trump first floated the prospect of immigration agents going to airports over the weekend, and border czar Tom Homan said on CNN on March 22 that agents would be going to airports to help the TSA “move those lines along.”
“President Trump is using every tool available to help American travelers who are facing hours-long lines at airports across the country—especially during this spring break and holiday season that is very important for many American families,” acting DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told The Epoch Times via email.
She said that hundreds of ICE officers were being deployed to airports with long waits to help bolster TSA efforts.
DHS did not provide a full list of those airports.
DHS entered a partial shutdown on Feb. 13 after members of Congress and the president failed to secure an agreement for fresh funding for the agency. TSA agents reporting to work have been going without pay. More than 400 have quit, and thousands of others have not reported to work, resulting in what DHS described as “crippling staffing shortages” across major airports.
Trump said in a social media post over the weekend that, absent new funding, ICE would be sent to airports. On March 23, he wrote on Truth Social that he favored ICE agents wearing masks while carrying out immigration enforcement activities but that he would appreciate agents inside airports not donning face coverings.
The Senate, in its most recent vote on the matter on March 20, failed to advance a bill that would fund DHS.
Democrats have opposed legislation that does not feature changes to immigration-related policies, such as new rules that would limit ICE’s reach.
Trump has been trying to convince Congress to pass a separate bill, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which features a requirement that voters provide proof of citizenship. He said on March 22 that he does not think that Republicans should come to a funding agreement with Democrats unless Democrats help Republicans approve the SAVE Act.
“It is far more important than anything else we are doing in the Senate, and that includes giving these same terrible people, the Dems who are to blame for this mess!, a Five Billion Dollar cut in ICE funding,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on March 23 called the SAVE Act “an insidious tool of voter suppression that Democrats will not allow to pass.”
