(Washington) US Immigration Enforcement (ICE) agents were deployed to 14 airports across the country on Monday, according to a government official, due to a shortage of security personnel due to the partial budget shutdown.
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The American president had threatened on Saturday to send ICE agents to airports on Monday, where the wait can last hours due to a lack of personnel from the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), who are not paid due to this budget blockage.
According to Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s immigration advisor cited by CNN, agents were deployed to 14 airports on Monday.
“And there will be more,” he added.
Questioned on the same channel on Sunday morning, Tom Homan said that priority would be given “to large airports where the queues are the longest, three hours”.
PHOTO ALYSSA POINTER, REUTERS
ICE agents stand by as passengers wait in line at a checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, March 23, 2026.
The advisor emphasized that the goal was for police officers to be tasked with simple security tasks, such as guarding exit gates, so that TSA agents could be concentrated at specialized checkpoints.
Since February 14, funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the TSA, has been frozen due to the deep dispute between Democrats and Republicans in Congress over immigration police practices, which are highly contested on the left.
Due to this partial “shutdown”, thousands of federal DHS civil servants have been placed on technical unemployment, while thousands of others, in functions considered essential, continue to work without being paid.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on ABC on Sunday that the situation was going to get “much worse” as time went on because more TSA agents “are going to quit or not show up to their jobs” in order “to take another job to buy food and pay their rent.”
Currently, “there is an average absenteeism rate of 10% at airports”, but up to “30% to 40%” in places, he said.
