ICE agents have been sent to many airports across the country, causing increased travel fears for many individuals.
Recently in the United States, travel has become an inconvenience for thousands of people across the country. ICE has been at many airports surveying extremely long security lines. Some handed out water but others stood around not doing much.
Travel delays have been a result of the “Department of Homeland Security shutdown tied to a dispute over immigration enforcement tactics,” according to an article on CNN. This past Monday, President Trump deployed ICE agents to 14 airports, claiming it is an attempt to “ease disruptions.”
Donald Trump had announced this past Saturday afternoon that he wanted ICE in airports. DHS officials formed plans of deployment and Immigration Enforcement was in airports by Monday morning. Travelers are concerned, questioning why ICE is necessary. Some people at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport have told CNN that a lot of the officers are simply standing off to the side while people file through security. The Houston Airport System has reassigned hundreds of employees across different departments. They have added more to help manage the lines and assist travelers who need it, according to the director of aviation, Jim Szczesniak.
Homan makes it clear that ICE is not abandoning immigration enforcement duties and they can conduct proceedings in airports. He states, “It’s not going to change.”
Trump said that federal immigration officers will continue to conduct arrests, but it is not their priority while they are deployed. Trump stated to reporters, “They love it, because they’re able to arrest illegals as they come into the country. That’s very fertile territory, but that’s not why they’re there; they’re really there to help.” Trump has also requested that ICE agents take masks off when in the airports.
Just a day before ICE was deployed to airports, agents were sent to aid TSA with two people who were arrested by federal agents at the San Francisco International Airport. DHS said the pair was in the U.S illegally and had an order of removal from 2019.
At first, leaders of the TSA workers’ union were skeptical of ICE’s presence, with concerns that it “does not relieve mounting TSA officer frustrations,” according to CNN. TSA officers are currently in danger of missing a second paycheck if Congress cannot reach a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Many TSA employees are extremely frustrated with this lack of pay. The president of the American Federation of Government Employees suspects that “the administration sent ICE agents to airports as replacement workers,” in order to not pay TSA workers.
On Thursday, March 26, Trump said he would sign an executive order to get TSA agents paid, but nothing has been made official. Mr. Trump and Republicans in Congress had previously blamed Democrats for withholding TSA’s pay, but they had been pushing to separately fund TSA for weeks, a proposal the Republicans apparently rejected since the DHS funding lapse on February 14.
A lot of TSA workers live paycheck to paycheck only making an average of 35,000 dollars a year, according to AFGE. Many feel they have to call out of work to make money elsewhere in order to afford basic necessities, according to Angela Grana, the regional vice president of Colorado TSA Workers Union AFGE Local 1127.
A former TSA employee of more than 20 years and Marine veteran, Hydrick Thomas, shared his concerns with CNN about the customer service qualities that TSA workers must have and he believes ICE agents do not have that skill set. “If you want to bring a tactical force into an environment where you’re required to have customer service and a skill set – a mindset where you know what you’re doing, how to identify something that might be suspicious – they don’t have that training,” said Thomas, who is also the president of AFGE TSA Council 100.
Some TSA workers who also happen to be immigrants are concerned about the possibility of showing up to work and being detained, according to AFGE Treasury-Secretary Johnny Jones.
Nationwide, travellers have faced waits of multiple hours after hundreds of TSA employees have quit and thousands more have called out of work after not being paid for weeks. However, ICE agents are being paid and have been seen in Atlanta, New York, Houston, Chicago, and other cities.
While they are at the airports, they are limited in what duties they can perform; they aren’t trained to operate understaffed security checkpoints, which is unfortunate considering that is the main source of delays.
White House Border Czar Tom Homan said they will assist with easy tasks in order to free up TSA employees to deal with more pressing matters. The security backup is starting to depend on the day. This past Monday, travelers were stuck in lines for hours, but the very next day, people were able to get through in 45 minutes at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The shutdown has been in effect for 6 weeks and it remains unpredictable for travelers. At least 480 TSA officers have quit as of this past Wednesday and more than 3,000 have been calling out of work, which makes up 11% of the workforce, according to DHS. Also at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, 37% of TSA workers called out on Tuesday. Similar numbers were reported by Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. More than a third also called out at airports in New York and New Orleans on Tuesday.
Some of the airports have been forced to decrease the number of security checkpoints due to a lack of active employees. ICE agents have been able to monitor exits and crowd control to “help TSA do their job in areas that don’t need their specialized expertise, such as screening through the X-ray machine,” Homan told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday.
Homan claims ICE in airports is nothing new. There are many agents in airports around the country conducting criminal investigations and immigration enforcement. A former TSA administrator and former FBI deputy director, John Pistole, said the agents may also provide a more well rounded security in cases where criminals attempt to take advantage of chaotic circumstances.
While bigger airports usually have their own police forces, they can sometimes be “stretched thin by airport crowds,” according to Pistole. City police officers told CNN that their days off have been removed and they have been working 12 hour shifts.
ICE in the airports has presented another risk for travelers. On Sunday, Angelina Lopez-Jimenez and her 9 year old daughter were walking in the San Francisco International Airport when they were approached by a stranger. The person asked her name, and minutes later, she was being detained by immigration enforcement in front of her daughter.
Lopez-Jimenez, who is originally from Guatemala, and her daughter Wendy, were flagged at TSA when they showed up to the airport for their flight to Miami and the TSA agency tipped off ICE.
The pair had been living on the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay Area. She did enter the country illegally, but other than that, she had no criminal record.
Documents released after the incident reveal how the Transportation Security Administration is sharing the names and birth dates of travelers believed to have been ordered out of the country, according to a New York Times article published on March 24. These shared details made it easier for ICE to detain undocumented immigrants.
Left-wing officials condemned the Trump Administration for targeting the mothers of children as opposed to dangerous criminals. Mr. Garamendi, a democratic official, also said that TSA sharing that information with ICE seemed to be “omnipresent” under the Trump Administration, putting people’s personal information at risk.
Lopez-Jimenez was brought to the attention of the Trump administration during his first term in 2018 when border patrol agents spotted her and her daughter in San Luis Ariz. according to the federal documents. They determined that her and her daughter were born in Guatemala and they were not here legally. They detained her to take photographs and fingerprints, but she was later released and told to appear in court. She showed up for some of the appointments and she ultimately missed the court date which led to the judge ordering her deportation.
This past Sunday, when she was detained, the ICE agents found her in her terminal and she was holding two Guatemalan passports which she handed to immigration enforcement upon request. They matched the identity to the records from 2018 and identified her. The agents asked her to follow them into the international terminal and documents stated she tried to run away but did not succeed.
The agent only succeeded in handcuffing one wrist while a crowd began watching the commotion. She was refusing to walk so they placed her in a wheelchair to take her away. She was booked into a holding room with her daughter at the airport and they were later checked into a hotel room at McAllen Plaza Hotel and Suites in Texas.
They were checked out at 3 AM on Tuesday and have since been sent back to Guatemala.
It is currently unclear if she was aware of her deportation status, but the DHS said on social media that Lopez-Jimenez and her daughter were “illegal aliens.”
Nancy Tung, the chairwoman of the San Francisco Democratic Party and a member of the airport commission, faulted the ICE agents for the detention, saying that she believed it was terrifying that the airport has become unsafe for immigrants.
As of two days ago ICE was not in Boston or other local airports. 35 TSA officers at New England Airports have left their jobs amid the shutdown, but these airports have not gotten to the point of needing extra help.
Recent immigration enforcement has spread to secure areas, including the airport, leaving travelers and TSA employees scared, even though they are allegedly just there to help.
Copy-Editor: Abigail Stark
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Researcher and Reporter: Addison Mason