On Thursday, many hours security lines through New York City’s LaGuardia Airport. The wait was the longest in the country—George Bush International Airport in Houston reported a three-and-a-half-hour wait. More than a month in parts government shutdown which has left others Department of National Security Freelance DHS workers, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents are calling in sick or off duty in droves, causing travel chaos across the United States. The Trump administration’s solution? Send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the.
ICE agents were to be deployed to at least 14 airports on Monday, largely in an effort to speed up security lines—and five days after ICE raids, airport workers are furious. ICE agents, the Transportation Security Officers (TSO) who work for the TSA tell WIRED, don’t have the proper certification and training to perform many of the duties that can expedite security lines. TSA employees say they are confused by the situation—and worried about what it could mean for their future.
ICE agents have been seen walking through parcels, patrolling security lines and cargo bays. They have been seen giving directions to lost passengers, posing for pictures handing out bottles of water to those waiting in line, and, more often than not, standing around and appearing to do very little. “ICE is here and they’re not doing anything to help,” passengers in the security line heard one flight attendant complain Wednesday at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
The The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that some passengers stuck in line saw ICE agents being trained to check passenger IDs and boarding passes. In a hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday, acting TSA director Ha Nguyen McNeill said that “travel document screening work is one of TSA’s non-specialized screening tasks,” and said ICE agents are being trained to conduct inspections.
TSOs say the existence of ICE frustrates freelancers—especially because ICE agents are paid. “If you want to bring tactical strength into an environment where you need to have customer service and a mindset where you know what you’re doing, how to identify something that might be suspicious—they don’t have that training,” says Hydrick Thomas, security officer and president of AFGE Local 2222, which covers New York and New Jersey airports.
Security officials say they care about their colleagues, who, due to last year’s government shutdown, have not received enough pay for half of the fiscal year. Agents worry about paying rent, mortgage, gas and childcare. Food banks are stationed at several airports, including those in Houston, North Carolina, and San Diego. In Knoxville, Tennessee, the airport authority they accept donations to the staff at the Delta Airlines counter. Eleven percent of airport checkpoint workers called in Tuesday, compared to four percent before the shutdown, a government official testified to Congress Wednesday morning. Some airports, including those in Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans, and New York’s John F. Kennedy, have seen daily clearance rates as high as 35 percent. More than 480 TSA screeners have been out of a job since the shutdown began in February, the agency says.
In the long term, security officials say they are concerned that the federal government plans to replace them with other federal agents, including ICE agents, or private sector workers. One cited Project 2025, a second Trump administration blueprint published by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which advocates total privatization of the TSA.
“Part of the American dream that I was sold on was that working for the government was dignified and stable,” said Carlos Rodriguez, security officer and vice president of AFGE TSA Council 100 representing Northeast airports from New Jersey to Vermont. “But this is not honorable or stable at the moment.”
