ICE leaving some airport security checkpoints after helping TSA manage long lines
An ICE agent and TSA member check IDs at a security counter at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on March 28.
Washington (CNN) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have begun leaving some US airport security checkpoints, where they had been assisting Transportation Security Administration officers managing hourslong lines of passengers during the partial government shutdown.
Beginning last week, agents concluded their checkpoint duties at some of the 14 US airports where President Donald Trump deployed them on March 23.
Security wait times at many US airports dramatically increased after TSA workers stopped showing up to work when the government lapse in funding kept them from getting paid. The callout rates dropped once Trump ordered the department to pay employees using money from a sweeping domestic policy bill that was passed last summer.
Although not trained to do everything TSA officers do, ICE agents were checking identification at the beginning of checkpoints, managing crowds and even handing out water bottles to passengers waiting in lines.
At a City Council budget hearing on Wednesday, Philadelphia International Airport’s interim CEO and chief financial officer Tracy Borda said ICE agents will no longer be at the airport as of Thursday.
“The good news is, we’re at a point where we’re told that as of (Thursday), we won’t have any more ICE officers at the airport,” Borda said. “They should be gone. There may be other parts of the country that are still seeing lines. We’re not sure.”
Borda said when she was first notified ICE would be coming to the airport, she sent a letter to 17,000 employees notifying them that the agents would be present.
“We really had no issues,” Borda said, while discussing ICE agents’ roles at the airport.
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport told CNN ICE agents were gone as of last Friday.
At Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, agents were no longer assisting as of Monday, a spokesperson confirmed.
A Pittsburgh International Airport spokesperson also confirmed there were no longer ICE agents at the airport.
Other airports, including Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport; New York City area airports, John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International; and Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Meyers directed CNN to the Department of Homeland Security or TSA for comment. Neither has responded to a request for information.
While ICE’s role in helping TSA at checkpoints is coming to an end, the agents still may continue to conduct enforcement operations in the terminals.
According to Reuters, tips shared by federal airport security officials led ICE to arrest 800 people from the start of Trump’s presidency through February 2026. The detentions, which come well before ICE was deployed to assist at checkpoints, illustrate the close relationship between the different parts of DHS.
The-CNN-Wire
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