Trump Says ICE Agents Will Be Sent to Airports as Shutdown Deepens TSA Crisis

US President Donald Trump says he will deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports on Monday to support Transportation Security Administration staff, as the partial government shutdown pushes TSA operations to breaking point.

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said ICE personnel would step in to help “our wonderful TSA Agents who have stayed on the job,” despite the fact that ICE officers are not trained for airport security a role handled exclusively by TSA’s 65,000‑strong workforce. The announcement followed his Saturday warning that he would send ICE to airports if congressional Democrats did not immediately approve funding for airport security.

The shutdown, now more than a month old, has left TSA officers without pay for a second full paycheck cycle. Hundreds have resigned, and call‑outs have surged, with more than 10 percent of officers calling in sick on most days over the past week, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Travel disruptions have intensified at major airports as staffing shortages worsen.

ICE, central to Trump’s immigration crackdown, has long drawn criticism from Democrats and civil liberties groups. The idea of placing ICE agents at airport checkpoints has sparked fierce backlash. Senator Richard Blumenthal called the proposal “another reckless, lawless threat to misuse ICE agents,” arguing that the public would be “appalled” to see ICE patrolling airports.

Representative Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, accused Trump of “manufacturing chaos at airports for political leverage,” warning that turning ICE into a checkpoint force would bring a “tool of fascism” into American travel hubs. He urged the president to “stand down his secret police” and allow Congress to fund TSA workers.

Trump has insisted the deployment will begin Monday “if the Democrats do not allow for Just and Proper Security at our Airports, and elsewhere throughout our Country,” escalating a standoff that has already strained the nation’s aviation system.