President Trump ordered ICE officers to airports starting Monday to ease long TSA lines during a partial government shutdown, and the move has exposed deep political fights over funding and immigration enforcement.

President Trump announced Sunday that ICE officers will deploy to airports across the country starting Monday to help clear security lines that have ballooned to three hours at some of the nation’s busiest hubs. The move follows a partial government shutdown entering its 36th day and a workforce of roughly 50,000 TSA agents working without pay. The crisis has produced long waits and rising staff shortages as the federal standoff continues.

Travelers faced ugly scenes over the weekend: Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport saw three-hour waits, Houston’s George Bush International Airport hit two hours, and JFK topped an hour. LaGuardia’s Terminal B reported nearly two-hour lines Sunday morning, and at Philadelphia International Airport security lines backed up to the Marriott on the premises by 6 a.m. Reuters reporter Jarrett Renshaw captured the scene on X: “I have never seen a line this long in Philly.”

Thousands of TSA screeners have called in sick since February 14, and more than 400 have quit outright. The stress on the system is about to spike: TSA workers are set to miss paychecks on Friday, raising the odds of more no-shows and resignations. That looming payday cutoff is shaping the deployment decisions being made this week.

Trump tapped border czar Tom Homan to lead the airport operation and began mobilizing ICE agents on Saturday in what the administration framed as a direct response to Democratic obstruction. The president made the justification bluntly in a public statement blaming the opposition for the funding impasse. The deployment is being pitched as a targeted, temporary fix to keep terminals moving.

“On Monday, ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful TSA Agents who have stayed on the job despite the fact that the Radical Left Democrats, who are only focused on protecting hard line criminals who have entered our Country illegally, are endangering the USA by holding back the money that was long ago agreed to with signed and sealed contracts, and all.”

Homan explained on national TV how ICE would operate at checkpoints and emphasized limits to their role. He said ICE agents will not run x-ray machines but can handle non-specialized tasks so certified screeners can focus on technical screening work. The idea is to reassign crowd control and basic checks away from trained screeners to keep security lanes moving.

“I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an x-ray machine – because you’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 in the specialized jobs to help move those lines.”

Officials are still finalizing how many ICE agents will deploy, with plans to firm up the numbers before the operation begins. The administration notes a funding gap between agencies: ICE retained funding from last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act while TSA ran out of money. That contrast is the practical reason ICE can be moved into this role now.

The funding crisis has roots in a partisan fight over immigration policy and DHS operations. Democrats have demanded immigration enforcement reforms as a condition for DHS funding, while Republican leaders have pushed for broader agency funding. Democrats have also pursued standalone funding measures that would exclude immigration enforcement, creating a standoff that left TSA underfunded.

The White House has signaled willingness to accept several reforms: expand body-worn cameras for ICE agents, limiting immigration enforcement around schools and hospitals, increasing oversight of ICE detention facilities, and requiring officers to wear ID badges. Those concessions were presented as meaningful compromises intended to move talks forward. Yet Democrats continue to press for additional constraints.

Among the further demands pushed by some Democrats are a ban on agents wearing masks and face coverings and a requirement for ICE to obtain judicial warrants before entering private property. The result is a political calculation: some lawmakers prioritize institutional limits on ICE even while travelers and TSA workers suffer at checkpoints. That calculation is central to the broader fight over DHS funding.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued a stark warning about the immediate future of airport staffing as unpaid workers face another missed payday. His message was direct and unsparing about the likely fallout for TSA operations in the days ahead.

“I think you’re going to see more TSA agents, as we come to Thursday, Friday, Saturday of next week, they’re going to quit or they’re not going to show up.”

“So I do think it’s going to get much worse.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries objected to the ICE deployment on national television, offering a dramatic critique that the administration predicted it would get. Trump had written Sunday that “no matter how great a job ICE does, the Lunatics leading the incompetent Dems will be highly critical of their work.” Jeffries responded with a warning about untrained agents at airports that crossed into alarming territory.

“The last thing the American people need are untrained ICE agents at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize or, in some instances, kill them.”

The dispute has become as much about messaging as it is about operations: one side accuses the other of breaking the system, then blames the proposed fixes. Jeffries also argued Republicans are the ones “forcing TSA agents to work without pay” and creating “chaos at airports throughout the land.” That back-and-forth underscores the partisan stakes as both sides trade accusations while lines grow longer.

The ICE deployment is meant to be a bridge to steady operations while funding talks continue, using available personnel to keep basic flow at checkpoints. It buys time but does not solve the underlying shutdown. Fifty thousand federal employees are working for free, millions of travelers face long waits, and the funding fight shows no immediate end in sight.