Trump Threatens ICE Deployment at Airports Amid TSA Crunch
“If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country…be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our ICE Agents to the Airports.”
President Donald Trump is turning up the pressure in the standoff over Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding, floating a move that would send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into airport security roles if the current shutdown continues.
Currently, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents are working without pay during the funding lapse, and the strain is already spilling into the travel system. Long lines are building, staffing is thinning, and more than 300 TSA officers have quit since the shutdown began, with callouts rising well above normal levels.
With that backdrop, Trump stepped in with a warning that serves both as policy and leverage.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 21, 2026
“If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia, who have totally destroyed, with the approval of a corrupt Governor, Attorney General, and Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, the once Great State of Minnesota. I look forward to seeing ICE in action at our Airports. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
At a basic level, the idea is straightforward. If TSA cannot fully staff checkpoints, the administration is signaling it will pull from elsewhere inside DHS to keep airports moving. But the political layer is just as clear. ICE is not a neutral substitute, and its presence at airport security would immediately shift the conversation from logistics to enforcement.
That is where Democrats jumped in.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries seized on the proposal during a Sunday appearance, framing it as reckless and dangerous.
Jeffries on Trump sending ICE agents to airports tomorrow: "The last thing that the American people need are for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize or, in some instances, kill them." pic.twitter.com/EfLcRhVGlD
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) March 22, 2026
Jeffries argued that “the last thing that the American people need” is ICE agents deployed across airports and suggested such a move could lead to violence.
The reaction highlights how quickly this has moved beyond a staffing issue. What began as a funding lapse affecting TSA operations is now being used to draw a much sharper contrast over immigration policy and federal authority. One side is focused on restoring basic function at airports under mounting strain. The other is warning about what happens when enforcement becomes part of that solution.
And with delays mounting and staffing still under pressure, that argument is not going away anytime soon.
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Comments
Seems to be more a coming attraction early this week v a threat at least that’s what I got out Tom Homan’s media hits today.
A cavity search for every Democrat after they have waited 2 to 3 hours in line. Then make them wait in line again.
I brush with Crest, so, no cavities!
Being serious for a moment, maybe it is time to completely rethink the security theater. The companies making the machines that irradiate our bodies with “perfectly safe(tm)” rays have made their money and various government people got their cut. There really isn’t any evidence TSA does anything but annoy and delay.
At the least, put the security question in the hands – and responsibility – of the airports, or the airlines. As it stands now, TSA is a jobs program. Yes, there are some who are both courteous and diligent. But, in my experience, the bigger the airport the ruder the TSA.
After the third flight in a row I got singled out for special treatment I stopped flying and haven’t in seen the inside of an airport in 15 years. TSA agents main job is to harass and allow uneducated, untrained people to go on power trips. People who otherwise would be manning the fryer at McD’s.
My Father traveled a good bit for work and in retirement. He was selected for ‘additional screening’ nearly every trip. This was a Veteran, a former police officer, and an Attorney with a squeaky clean record. He asked numerous TSA agents what the deal was and the answer was always some version of :
1. you’re an older, white, male
2. We have numbers to meet for how many people we send to additional screening
3. You are almost certainly not gonna be a ‘problem’ or create extra work for TSA when selected
IOW he was selected not b/c he matched a threat profile but b/c he didn’t and to balance out the demographic stats while TSA screened the real potential threats.
Privatize the TSA screening functions. Give the local airport authorities the equipment in place. Centralize the training under a vastly reduced TSA. They could continue to set the SOP, the security policies, audit and test at local airports, keep sending the ‘Air Marshals’. Charge the flying public the costs of using the airports via user fees on ticket prices instead of Federal taxpayers.
exactly
adn that thinking traveled down to police stops
got to get enough whites so we arecalled out as racists
cities in the usa have laws /attitudes that dictate the police to not stop cars being driven by poc for actual infractions as will only lead to more trouble ,,if not violent,,lawsuits etc
f the left
“Jeffries argued that “the last thing that the American people need” is ICE agents deployed across airports and suggested such a move could lead to violence.”
Seems to me, Mr. Jefferies, that past violence is the exact reason we need security at airports. And it also seems that violence is the reason that ICE has been rounding up people the last few months. It would also seem that Mr. Trump’s proposal wouldn’t be at all necessary if you hadn’t stood in the way of funding TSA, now would it?
So it would seem that you are both the cause of and the solution to the problem at hand. Perhaps you should spend less time braying like a donkey on television and do your job.
The last thing the American people need is 5 and dime Obama.
TimuBama.
Hackeem (my spelling) is a Challenged Obama.
George W. Bush was a stupid jerk who decided rather than use profiling for security he would wallow in an ex-drunkard’s sentimentality, and screen everybody at the airport. It costs a fortune, but the symbolism brought tears to his blank, dead eyes. It wasn’t his money. He had plenty of dough trading off daddy’s name.
Trump may not be a master of 4D chess, but he does know how to think outside the box pretty consistently, as this gambit proves again.
W couldn’t think outside the box if he was inside a box trying to get out.
This was a magnificent, Tysonian “punch in the face” of the Demsocialists.
Putting the people they hate the most in charge of the very institution they “serenely” chose to financially threaten.
It may not be 4D chess, but it is certainly the Art of the Deal.
“The last thing that the American people need are for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize or, in some instances, kill them.”
So shut up and pay the TSA agents, you twat.
Hackeem has long since graduated to the esteemed level of “Master Twat Waffle.”
Says the guy who probably has been allowed to bypass TSA screening each and every time he flies and doesn’t have to take his shoes off, his belt off and then get groped by a TSA agent. So shut-up and pay the TSA agents, you twit.
I agree. The last thing anyone needs or wants is for untrained ICE agents to be deployed anywhere. Fortunately that’s not the case. Recent recruits who have not yet completed their training aren’t deployed; they’re still in training. ICE agents in the field are all fully trained, and most have more experience than your average policeman, or than your average TSA worker or security guard. If you worry about ICE “brutalizing and killing” people, then shouldn’t you worry even more about the people who usually do this job?
PRESIDENT Trump could “trump” this by hiring Israelis to do the job. They are especially adept at it.
I can hear the wet, meaty sound of leftist heads exploding now!
Nice thought but there aren’t enough of them
The presence of ICE at airports is not the key point of the article…that would be the stupidity of Jeffries’ statement. Stunning actually that he thinks people are that stupid to fall for his BS.
So the airports will now be scenes of chaos with angry AWFUL insane Karens screeching, blowing their stupid whistles and assaulting federal law enforcement officers, trying to run them over and hopefully, being shot dead?
Maybe I will start flying again.
so untrained ICE agents from the maga side
vs
doctors teachers pilots atc etc who aer DEI from the Hakeem side