Trump to send ICE agents to help strained TSA at airports Kathryn Palmer, USA TODAY Sun, March 22, 2026 at 1:13 PM UTC 2 President Donald Trump said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will be sent to airports to assist understaffed Transportation Security Administration agents starting Monday, March 23, amid the ongoing partial government shutdown.
Trump to send ICE agents to help strained TSA at airports
Kathryn Palmer, USA TODAY Sun, March 22, 2026 at 1:13 PM UTC
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President Donald Trump said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will be sent to airports to assist understaffed Transportation Security Administration agents starting Monday, March 23, amid the ongoing partial government shutdown.
The announcement comes a day after the president first threatened to deploy the federal immigration enforcement agency to address the growing crisis, sparked by the ongoing funding fight in Congress and exacerbated by an influx of spring break travelers.
"On Monday, ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful TSA Agents who have stayed on the job despite the fact that the Radical Left Democrats, who are only focused on protecting hard line criminals who have entered our Country illegally, are endangering the USA by holding back the money that was long ago agreed to with signed and sealed contracts, and all," Trump wrote in a social media post on Sunday, March 22.
More: A kinder, gentler ICE? Mullin conciliatory, but White House says stay the course
1 / 0ICE, Border Patrol leaders face Congress over deadly Minnesota raids(L/R) Rodney Scott, Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Joseph Edlow, Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and Todd Lyons, acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), testify during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on Feb. 10, 2026.
In comments a day prior, the president said he would also have the ICE agents arrest people who have entered the United States without authorization, especially those coming from Somalia − a country he has repeatedly criticized. It's not clear if the Monday deployment will only see ICE agents assisting TSA agents in their prescribed duties, or if their mandate will also include immigration enforcement at airports.
Customs and Border Protection agents primarily manage immigration control at airports.
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More: What to know if you're flying this weekend during government shutdown
Travelers have recently seen longer wait times at airports across the country, especially at security screenings, due to a shortage in TSA workers. In the past month, about 50,000 TSA airport security employees have been forced to work without pay, as a result of the partial government shutdown.
More: Trump says he will send ICE agents to airports if TSA funding stalls
The shutdown began after Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which includes both TSA and ICE, until DHS changed its immigration enforcement policies in the wake of the violent crackdown in Minnesota. Republicans have rejected offers from Democrats to pass funding only for the non-immigration enforcement parts of DHS, including TSA.
Kathryn Palmer is a politics reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr. Sign up for her daily politics newsletter here.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump to send ICE agents to help strained TSA at airports
Source: "AOL Breaking"
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Published: March 22, 2026 at 03:54PM on Source: MORNING MAG
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