Donald Trump’s border czar was noncommittal on when ICE agents would be reassigned from the nation’s airports to continue conducting the president’s mass deportation agenda.
Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, Tom Homan said that ICE agents would be removed from airports when TSA agents were relieved of pressure caused by the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.
That shutdown is now causing major but sporadic delays at some airports, making wait times unpredictable for many travelers.
Homan pointed to the decision by hundreds of TSA agents to either quit or refuse to show up for work without pay, which he said could put further stress on the remaining TSA agents even after the shutdown ends.
“We’ll see. It depends how many TSA agents come back to work, how many TSA agents have actually quit and have no plans [on] coming back to work,” Homan told Jake Tapper.
Lawmakers left Washington on Friday without a deal to end the shutdown of DHS, which is now well into its second month, with no signs that Republicans and Democrats are coming together to end the stalemate.
Democrats want a series of reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) before they are willing to vote for ICE operations. Some progressives are opposed to further funding those efforts altogether after the killings of two Americans by DHS agents in Minnesota earlier this year.
Among those reforms are the demasking of ICE agents in the field, an end to roving enforcement operations, and the requirement that ICE agents obtain judicial warrants before searching private property.
The Senate unanimously passed a bill last week to fund DHS, excluding ICE, for the remainder of the fiscal year, a plan rejected by House leadership.
Members of the lower chamber left town after passing a bill that would fund all of DHS for eight weeks and allow time for further negotiations on ICE reforms to continue. Speaker Mike Johnson refused to allow the chamber to vote on the Senate’s legislation.
With both chambers and the White House under Republican control, the issue of spiraling chaos at America’s airports resulting from a government shutdown threatens to further damage the GOP’s odds in the midterms.
Republicans are working to defend majorities in both chambers against a resurgent Democratic Party that leads in most generic-ballot polling.
Trump opted to order ICE agents into the nation’s airports last weekend as wait times climbed across the country. Reports from major airports indicate that the agents are generally not performing security checkpoint screening tasks and are instead being relegated to patrol duties and guard stations.
He also ordered the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Office of Management and Budget to find funding for TSA agents to receive paychecks in the coming days.
Some Democrats have questioned the legality of this move, which is, in effect, the White House’s bid to circumvent Congress to direct new uses of funds.
Homan took over the department this month after the firing of Kristi Noem, Trump’s first DHS secretary.
Noem was removed after facing criticism for appointing Corey Lewandowski to a special position as her de facto chief of staff, as well as for disbursing lucrative federal contracts.
She was also attacked for using millions of dollars to promote the agency’s messages and her own public image, including an ad campaign featuring her on horseback.
Trump’s polling numbers on immigration have reached some of their lowest levels in years following the shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis and months of public and highly visible immigration enforcement efforts and “raids” that have left entire communities rattled by deportations and sometimes violent removal tactics.
