In the midst of overcrowded airports, travelers spotted Department of Homeland Security agents, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, in several airports across the nation. The agents have been sent to specific airports to assist the TSA.
On Monday, March 23, President Donald Trump deployed ICE agents to 13 different airports across major cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Atlanta. TSA workers have not been paid in weeks, and the callout rate reached a high of 11.76% over the weekend, according to the DHS.
On Sunday, multiple airports reported massive individual call-out numbers according to a DHS spokesperson. New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong International Airport had a call-out rate of 42.3%, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson’s was 41.5% and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was 37.4%.
An ongoing partial government shutdown is leaving workers unpaid and leading to hour-long lines and delays. This partial shutdown started in mid-February with disagreements over ICE funding.
The large presence of federal agents in airports has made some travelers more on edge. In a conversation overheard by NBC news reporters between a pilot and a flight attendant on a flight from Memphis to Atlanta, both expressed concerns about ICE being at airports, saying “they’re not trained to have the patience we have in this business.”
“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,” The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement on Sunday. “Never in our history has a president deployed armed agents to the airport to inspire fear among families,”
NBC also spoke with ICE officers who said they are not trained on using the TSA equipment and are mostly helping with duties such as crowd control, monitoring lines and checking IDs. A different ICE officer said that a real form of ID or a passport is required for boarding domestic flights, which limits immigration arrests at the airports.
Author: Andrew Streeter
Photo: David J. Phillip, AP News
Editor: Hannah Clove
news@suunews.net
