ICE is headed to US airports. President Trump said Sunday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will start helping Transportation Security Administration staff at airports on Monday as TSA struggles with staffing during the ongoing partial government shutdown and a spike in spring break traffic, reports USA Today. The move may be an attempt by Trump to break an impasse over the Department of Homeland Security that has led to the partial shutdown, per the New York Times.
In a social media post, Trump praised TSA workers who are on the job without pay and blamed Democrats for withholding DHS funding, accusing them of prioritizing "hard line criminals" in the country illegally. A day earlier, he suggested ICE officers at airports could also arrest people in the US without authorization, singling out arrivals from Somalia, though it's unclear whether the new deployment will go beyond assisting with security lines. Customs and Border Protection typically oversees immigration checks at airports. The shutdown, driven by a standoff over DHS immigration policies, has left about 50,000 TSA employees working unpaid, contributing to longer security wait times nationwide.