President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to send U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports unless congressional Democrats agree to a GOP-backed funding deal, escalating a standoff that has already slowed security lines at airports nationwide.
In a post to Truth Social, Trump said the ICE agents would “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.”
Deploying agents to checkpoints nationwide would mark an unprecedented expansion of immigration enforcement even as Democrats push for tighter limits on how those agents operate, citing concerns the administration has fast-tracked training to expand ICE ranks.
“This is again an example, it seems to me, of the president seeking to utilize ICE in a way that achieves political goals, almost as a punishment,” said John Sandweg, a former acting director at ICE during the Obama administration. “The operations, to me, don’t seem to be designed to focus on public safety.”
Democrats have refused to fund certain agencies within the Department of Homeland Security — which includes ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection — until the GOP agrees to new restrictions on immigration enforcement after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renée Good in Minneapolis. The congressional standoff has left the majority of employees at the Transportation Security Administration working without pay for more than a month, prompting an increase in callouts at airports and threatening worsening disruptions for travelers as spring break nears for millions of students.
Democrats have demanded several changes, including requirements that ICE agents get a warrant from a judge before forcefully entering homes, wear identifying information on their uniforms, and cease wearing masks. The Trump administration has agreed to several changes, including the expanded use of body-worn cameras and limiting civil enforcement activities at certain locations, including hospitals, schools, and places of worship.
Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer (D., N.Y.) has said he would offer an alternative measure to fund TSA without the rest of the Homeland Security agencies.
Trump in a second post about the matter to Truth Social on Saturday, after cheering the death of former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, accused Democrats of hurting “so many people with their vicious and uncaring ways.”
“What they have done to the Department of Homeland Security, our fantastic TSA Officers, and, most importantly, the great people of our Country, is an absolute disgrace,” he continued, pledging to dispatch ICE to airports on Monday.
Some Border Patrol agents currently work checkpoints at airports along the southern border. Trump said that he would deploy the ICE agents if Democrats did not “immediately sign an agreement.”
That type of operation, Sandweg said, would almost certainly target a population of immigrants without criminal history.
“For every one person with criminal history you will encounter 15 people who have been here for a long time, and there are far more efficient ways of getting to that criminal population through a targeted approach,” Sandweg said.