Immigration agents deploying to airports under border czar as TSA staffing falls short

(CNN) — President Donald Trump said border czar Tom Homan will be in charge of deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports on Monday, with Homan telling CNN the agents will help with security at entrances and exits to ease the Transportation Security Administration’s workload.

“This is about … helping TSA do their mission and get the American public through that airport as quick as they can while adhering to all the security guidelines and the protocols,” Homan told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

Airports around the country have seen long security lines, as TSA officers have quit or called out sick as they work without pay amid a partial government shutdown. Homan said his “opinion is that we concentrate on the airports where the longest waits are; we prioritize those large airports with those long waits like three hours.”

“We’re simply there to help TSA do their job in areas that don’t need their specialized expertise, such as screening through the X-ray machine. Not trained in that? We won’t do that,” Homan said. “But there are roles we can play to release TSA officers from the non-significant roles, such as guarding an exit so they can get back to the scanning machines and move people quicker.”

The border czar said ICE will continue conducting immigration enforcement operations while aiding TSA. He added the heads of ICE and the TSA are involved in planning discussions, and that the public can expect more details of “a well-thought-out plan to execute” later Sunday.

Trump first announced the move to deploy ICE agents on social media Saturday, as lawmakers worked toward reaching an agreement to fund the Department of Homeland Security amid mounting travel disruptions. Democrats have refused to fund the department as they demand changes that would rein in Trump’s immigration policies after two people were killed during an immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Vice President JD Vance accused Democrats on Sunday of holding TSA “hostage” while expressing gratitude that the White House will deploy ICE agents to airports.

“Thankfully, ICE will bring sanity to our airports starting tomorrow, but it’s far past time for Democrats to fund DHS,” he posted on X.

Bipartisan appropriators held a brief meeting with Homan on Friday evening that sources from both parties called “productive.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Sunday he hoped to meet with Homan after another bipartisan meeting was postponed a day earlier.

Talks are expected to continue Sunday as Republicans await a counteroffer from Democrats after receiving a proposal from the White House on Friday. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing to reach a deal by the end of the week, according to a person familiar with the talks.

Two of the big sticking points remain whether to require judicial warrants on immigration enforcement action and to require ICE agents to remove their masks — both key Democratic demands that the White House has resisted.

Senators are eager to wrap up talks and pass a bill before Easter recess at week’s end, meaning a deal needs to be reached within the next couple of days to begin the legislative process to meet that timeframe.

Thune said Sunday that lawmakers were making “some headway” in talks to reopen DHS, warning that things could get “pretty bad” if a deal isn’t reached in the coming days.

He said the Trump administration’s plans to send ICE agents to airports to help bolster TSA staffing is “evidence of how sort of desperate things have become at our airports.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told “State of the Union” on Sunday the plan to send ICE agents to airports was an effort to “squeeze lawmakers to try to finally come up with a plan to fund 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.

On Saturday, Republican Sen. John Kennedy told CNN “it could help” to send ICE agents to airports, but suggested that it’s not a definitive solution to the long security lines.

“If they’re planning on using some of the ICE folks to help with crowd control to free up TSA people to do the screening, I could see a scenario where that might help.”

Meanwhile, the union representing TSA officers is fiercely pushing back against plans to deploy ICE agents to airports, warning the move could put passenger safety at risk.

American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley said in a statement Sunday that “Replacing unpaid TSA workers with ICE agents is not a solution, but a dangerous escalation.”

“ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security,” Kelley said, stressing that TSA officers spend months developing highly specialized skills to detect explosives, weapons and sophisticated threats designed to evade screening. “You cannot improvise that.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Manu Raju, Camila DeChalus, Alison Main, Aileen Graef, Alaa Elassar and Gloria Pazmino contributed to this report.