Immigration agents deploying to airports under border czar as TSA staffing falls short

By Riane Lumer, Alison Main, Aileen Graef, CNN

(CNN) — Immigration agents will deploy to airports on Monday under the direction of border czar Tom Homan, President Donald Trump said Sunday, as talks to fund the Department of Homeland Security have yet to yield a breakthrough.

Trump first threatened Saturday that if lawmakers didn’t reach an agreement to fund DHS, he would deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports to help alleviate the strain on Transportation Security Administration workers that has contributed to mounting travel disruptions.

Homan told CNN on Sunday that the move is about “helping TSA do their mission and get the American public through that airport as quick as they can while adhering to all the security guidelines and the protocols.”

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, Republicans are waiting for Democrats to respond to the latest offer from the White House as they race to find a deal to reopen DHS before a planned holiday break.

“We’re hitting pause for a minute, and everyone’s collecting themselves and figuring out where they want to be,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Sunday afternoon.

TSA under strain

ICE agents are expected to deploy to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Monday to assist with crowd management and support TSA operations, according to a DHS official and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens.

“Federal officials have indicated that this deployment is not intended to conduct immigration enforcement activities. All federal personnel will report directly to TSA for the duration of this assignment,” the mayor said in a statement.

TSA officers have quit or called out sick, forced to work without pay amid a partial government shutdown, which has contributed to long security lines at airports around the country. Homan said he’d like to “prioritize those large airports with those long waits like three hours.”

He argued that immigration agents would assist with functions that don’t require TSA training. “We’re simply there to help TSA do their job in areas that don’t need their specialized expertise, such as screening through the X-ray machine. Not trained in that? We won’t do that,” Homan told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

“But there are roles we can play to release TSA officers from the non-significant roles, such as guarding an exit so they can get back to the scanning machines and move people quicker,” he added.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, however, appeared to suggest a broader role for ICE, raising questions about the government’s coordination in implementing the plan.

“They run those same type of security machines at the southern border, right? Packages come through or people come through,” Duffy told ABC News’ “This Week.”

“We have ICE agents who are trained and can provide assistance to agents,” Duffy said.

It isn’t ICE’s role to perform screenings at ports of entry, but rather that of US Customs and Border Protection. CNN reached out to the Department of Transportation for clarification on Duffy’s comments, but it referred a reporter to DHS.

While DHS has touted the move, saying in a statement it will “help bolster TSA efforts to keep our skies safe and minimize air travel disruptions,” the union representing TSA officers is warning it could risk passenger safety. American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley said in a statement Sunday that “Replacing unpaid TSA workers with ICE agents is not a solution, but a dangerous escalation.”

“ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security,” Kelley said, stressing that TSA officers spend months developing highly specialized skills to detect explosives, weapons and sophisticated threats designed to evade screening. “You cannot improvise that.”

Some ICE agents began to learn about their deployments Sunday afternoon, according to the DHS official. They are expected to wear their marked gear and to help with crowd control. Plans are still in flux, but deployments are expected to start Monday.

DHS funding deal still uncertain

Trump injected a new complication into ongoing negotiations on Sunday when he threatened not to support any DHS deal until lawmakers pass the “SAVE America Act” — a bill overhauling federal elections that faces near-impossible odds in the Senate.

Asked about some lawmakers wanting to fund TSA while broader DHS negotiations continue, Trump — alluding to his ICE plan — told NewsNation in a phone interview, “Now that I did this, the Democrats want to make a deal. And I don’t think any deal should be made on this until they approve SAVE America.”

Democrats have refused to fund the department as they demand changes that would rein in Trump’s immigration policies after two people were killed during an immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Vice President JD Vance accused Democrats on Sunday of holding TSA “hostage” while praising the ICE deployment.

“Thankfully, ICE will bring sanity to our airports starting tomorrow, but it’s far past time for Democrats to fund DHS,” he posted on X.

But Sen. Chris Murphy, a key progressive voice in the Democratic caucus, accused Republicans of holding TSA “hostage” amid the partial government shutdown.

“Why don’t they just reopen TSA? Why don’t we just reopen the Coast Guard and FEMA?” he asked, pointing out that Democrats have said they would vote for legislation to fund other critical agencies within DHS besides ICE.

“They want to hold TSA hostage so that they can continue getting Democrats to fund the illegality happening at ICE. Let’s just isolate our difference. Let’s not hold TSA hostage any longer,” he said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Bipartisan appropriators held a brief meeting with Homan on Friday evening that sources from both parties called “productive.” Thune told reporters Sunday he hoped to meet with Homan after another bipartisan meeting was postponed a day earlier.

Senators are eager to wrap up talks and pass a bill before Easter recess at week’s end, meaning a deal needs to be reached within the next couple of days to begin the legislative process to meet that timeframe.

Two of the big sticking points are whether to require judicial warrants for immigration enforcement action and to require ICE agents to remove their masks — both key Democratic demands that the White House has resisted.

Thune said earlier Sunday that lawmakers were making “some headway,” warning that things could get “pretty bad” if a deal isn’t reached in the coming days.

The South Dakota Republican said the administration’s plans to send in ICE agents is “evidence of how sort of desperate things have become at our airports.”

But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries characterized it as an effort to “squeeze lawmakers to try to finally come up with a plan to fund DHS.”

“It’s unfortunate that Republicans have decided that they would rather force TSA agents to work without pay, inconvenience millions of Americans all across the country and now potentially expose them to untrained ICE agents and create chaos at airports throughout the land, rather than get ICE agents under control,” the New York Democrat said on “State of the Union.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Manu Raju, Camila DeChalus, Alaa Elassar, Gloria Pazmino and Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.