Travelers wait in line at a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Friday, March 20, 2026.
Elijah Nouvelage | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will deploy to airports on Monday to help ease security lines amid the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday.
President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to deploy ICE agents to airports as the shutdown drags into its second month, creating headaches for travelers moving through hours-long Transportation Security Administration security lines.
Homan confirmed that ICE will be deployed on Monday during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“We will be at the airports tomorrow, helping TSA move those lines along,” Homan said, adding that ICE will assist in areas like guarding exit doors to relieve TSA agents for screening travelers. “We’re simply there to help TSA do their jobs in areas that don’t need their specialized expertise.”
Homan said the details of the plan are still under discussion, but will be decided by Monday morning when ICE agents deploy.
“We’ll have a plan by the end of today, what airports we’re starting with and where we’re sending them,” Homan said. “It’s a work in progress.”
The move to deploy ICE comes as the DHS shutdown, which began on Feb. 14, strains airport workers. Many TSA agents have either called out rather than work without pay or quit altogether. More than 400 TSA officers have left their jobs since the start of the shutdown, according to an NBC News report.
Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, slammed the move.
“ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security,” Kelley said in a statement. “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.”
He added: “Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap. It creates one.”
Kelley called for Congress “to stop playing politics and do their jobs” to fund the TSA.
A spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey told MS NOW the decision to use federal officers at two New York City airports it oversees “rest[s] with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”
“The Port Authority expects that any such personnel assigned to assist with passenger processing functions will be appropriately trained and focused on supporting screening operations, consistent with maintaining the safety, integrity, and efficiency of the security process at our airports and protecting the flying public,” the spokesperson said.
Democrats are demanding statutory changes to immigration enforcement practices in exchange for funding DHS after two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by ICE in Minneapolis.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York slammed the plan to deploy ICE agents to airports.
“The last thing that the American people need are for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize or, in some instances, kill them,” Jeffries said on CNN.
Jeffries, however, indicated that Democrats do not plan to back down from their demands in exchange for funding DHS.
“It’s unfortunate that Republicans have decided that they would rather force TSA agents to work without pay, inconvenience millions of Americans all across the country and now potentially expose them to untrained ICE agents and create chaos at airports throughout the land rather than get ICE agents under control,” Jeffries said. “They need to be reined in, and our view is that they should not get another dime of taxpayer dollars until we have bold and dramatic and meaningful changes.”
The Democratic leader also suggested funding TSA and all other DHS subagencies, with the exception of ICE and Customs and Border Protection. Democrats have tried to advance such a bill several times, but Republicans have stymied the legislation, fearing they would lose leverage to eventually fund ICE and CBP.
Some Republicans have warmed to the idea of splitting off ICE and CBP funding from the rest of DHS, which includes TSA, the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who leads the Senate Commerce Committee, suggested the idea in an interview with The Hill on Saturday. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., also brought up the idea in an interview on C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire.” Both Kennedy and Cruz said Republicans would try to then pass funding for ICE through the reconciliation process, which only requires 50 votes in the Senate.
“Let’s open up everything but ICE,” Kennedy said. “But, I can tell you what’s gonna happen next, the Republicans are going to put a reconciliation bill on the floor that only requires Republican votes to fund ICE.”