TSA Union Leaders Condemn Trump's Plan to Deploy ICE Agents at Airports

Hundreds of ICE agents were deployed to 14 airports on Monday after Trump first floated the plan on Truth Social that Saturday, touching off a rapid and chaotic scramble inside the administration and a sharp rebuke from unions representing the nearly 50,000 TSA workers going without pay.

Airport security lines have been the most visible impact of the partial government shutdown that began on February 14. On Sunday, nearly 12 percent of TSA officers — more than 3,450 workers — did not report for duty, the highest absence rate since the shutdown began. At least 366 TSA officers had quit since the shutdown began; beyond those quitting, TSA workers were calling out because they cannot afford the gas to commute, with some spending the night at the airport to save money.

Trump initially floated the idea in a Truth Social post Saturday, saying that if Congress did not immediately sign a funding bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, he would deploy ICE to airports. He wrote: "If the Radical Left Democrats don't immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before."

White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed the deployment Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," framing it as crowd management rather than security screening. "I don't see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine, because we're not trained in that," Homan said. "But there are certain parts of security that TSA is doing that we can move them off those jobs, and put them in the specialized jobs to help move those lines." Asked about the specifics, Homan said the operation was "a work in progress."

That public confidence was not shared internally. As Trump announced the plan Saturday afternoon, DHS officials raced to formulate a deployment strategy. One DHS source, speaking on background to CBS News, captured the confusion in a single line: "I have no idea what we're doing."

Johnny Jones, a TSA officer at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and secretary-treasurer with the American Federation of Government Employees, the union representing nearly 50,000 TSA officers, said stationing ICE agents at airports would "be a distracting scenario, to say the least." He warned that ICE agents' presence could make airports less safe given widespread public anger at immigration officers' recent conduct, and that placing paid immigration agents beside unpaid TSA workers would only inflame frustrations further.

AFGE national president Everett Kelley was equally blunt. "ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security," Kelley said. "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."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, went further during a Sunday interview on CNN's "State of the Union." "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, referencing the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year by federal immigration agents — the event that sparked the DHS funding standoff in the first place.

The DHS shutdown started following those deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal immigration agents in Minnesota, which sparked Democratic demands to change ICE policy, including a judicial warrant requirement and a ban on ICE agents wearing masks. Republicans rejected the proposed changes and also opposed a Democratic plan to pass partial DHS funding that would exclude immigration enforcement.

Everett Kelley questioned the value of Trump's deployment and noted an additional grievance: while ICE's tactics are at the center of the DHS shutdown fight, ICE agents are still largely getting paid through a surge in funding the agency received through the domestic policy bill Republicans passed last July, known as the Big Beautiful Bill. One DC-based TSA agent called it "embarrassing and an insult to us because they have been getting paid and still are."

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement Sunday that "families traveling to see loved ones should not have to deal with ICE agents who likely have no training or experience with the mission of airport security," adding: "Never in our history has a president deployed armed agents to the airport to inspire fear among families."

DHS issued a statement Monday saying the federal presence would "help bolster TSA efforts to keep our skies safe and minimize air travel disruptions." DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told CBS News: "While the Democrats continue to put the safety, dependability, and ease of our air travel at risk, President Trump is taking action to deploy hundreds of ICE officers, that are currently funded by Congress, to airports being adversely impacted."

Former acting ICE Director John Sandweg told CNN the deployment was likely a political stunt that would do little to alleviate hours-long wait times. "It's hard to look at this and say this was driven by operations, and unfortunately, (it's) probably driven more by politics," he said.

AFGE sent letters to both chambers of Congress on March 19 detailing how its members are "feeling the pain" of the shutdown, especially as many are still recovering from debts incurred during a 43-day government shutdown last November. There are few signs lawmakers will reach a deal to fund DHS ahead of a scheduled holiday break.