Border czar Tom Homan confirmed Sunday that immigration agents will be at airports starting Monday.
In an interview with CNN’s "State of the Union," Homan told host Dana Bash that he is devising a plan with Tedd Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Ha Nguyen McNeill, acting administrator for TSA, to determine where agents would best fit at airports across the nation. That plan, Homan said, will be finalized Sunday and go into effect Monday.
“We'll have a plan by the end of today,” Homan said, including “what airports we're starting with.”
Homan’s announcement comes as congressional Democrats continue to decline to approve funding for the Department of Homeland Security unless Republicans and the administration agree to significant changes to ICE. President Donald Trump this weekend threatened to deploy ICE agents at airports if the stalemate continued.
“If the Democrats do not allow for Just and Proper Security at our Airports, and elsewhere throughout our Country, ICE will do the job far better than ever done before!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday. “I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday, and have already told them to, ‘GET READY.’ NO MORE WAITING, NO MORE GAMES!”
The partial government shutdown has led to TSA staffing shortages, causing hours-long wait times at some airports around the nation.
Homan on Sunday said DHS should send agents to locations with the longest wait times.
“I don't see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine because they're not trained in that, but there are certain parts of security that TSA is doing that we can move them off those jobs and put them into specialized jobs, help move those lines,” Homan said.
Agents will also be conducting immigration enforcement while at the airports, something they already do "all the time,” Homan said.
But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday said ICE at airports is "the last thing that the American people need ... potentially to brutalize or in some instances, kill them."
"We've already seen how ICE conducts itself," Jeffries said in an interview immediately following Homan's. "These are untrained individuals when it comes to doing the current job that they have for the most part, let alone deploying them in close exposure and highly sensitive situations at airports across the country."
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