Staff absences soar at some US airports as ICE agents prepare to screen travellers

WASHINGTON - Absences among transport security workers this weekend reached their highest since a partial government shutdown began five weeks ago, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on March 22, while immigration enforcement agents prepared to fill in for them at some of the busiest US airports.

At airports in Houston, New York and Atlanta, more than one-third of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staff were calling in sick or otherwise absent, DHS said, as the shutdown left tens of thousands working without pay while congressional Democrats and Republicans argue over the DHS budget.

To help fill the staffing gaps, hundreds of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will deploy to airports starting on March 23, government officials have said.

DHS said on March 22 it would not publicly share details about the ICE deployment, in order to preserve operational security, but sources briefed on the matter said the current plan calls for deploying ICE agents to 14 locations, although that figure may change.

For now, ICE personnel will not be deployed in areas behind airport security checkpoints because they lack the specific clearance needed, the sources said.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said in a statement his office has been informed that ICE agents on March 23 would be sent to Hartsfield-Jackson, the busiest US airport in passenger numbers.

Federal officials indicated that the ICE deployment would support TSA in crowd control and managing security lines in domestic terminals, and is “not intended to conduct immigration enforcement activities”, Mr Dickens said.

That contradicts a social media post by Mr Trump on March 21 that ICE agents’ activities would include “the immediate arrest of all illegal immigrants who have come into our country”, particularly Somalis, a group that his administration has accused, without evidence, of widespread fraud and corruption.

Workers without pay for weeks

The Democrats have held up funding for DHS while demanding a change in rules governing its immigration operations, which have killed US citizens and sparked public outrage.

Overall, more than 9 per cent of TSA employees have been absent from work over the past seven days, leading to lengthy lines for passengers trying to get to their gates, according to DHS.

“Many TSA officers cannot pay their rent, buy food, or afford to put petrol in their cars – forcing them to call out sick from work,” a DHS spokesperson said on March 22.

Hundreds of TSA agents forced to work without pay have also simply resigned, according to their labour union and TSA.

Border czar Tom Homan said on March 22 that sending out immigration agents to bolster short-staffed TSA teams will speed up airport lines, but the union for TSA workers said that does not solve what they see as the underlying problem of pay.

“When we deploy tomorrow, we’ll have a well thought-out plan to execute,” Mr Homan said on CNN’s State Of The Union programme.

“ICE will do the job far better than ever done before!” Mr Trump wrote in a social media post on the morning of March 22.

Details of how ICE agents would help with the lines were scant, although Mr Homan told CNN a plan would be in place by the end of the day “to move those lines along”.

Mr Homan and US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, in separate interviews, had different ideas about how the ICE agents might be deployed.

Mr Homan said he doubted ICE agents would operate X-ray baggage and passenger screening machines because they did not have experience.

Mr Duffy, in contrast, said ICE agents “know how to pat people down, they know how to run the X-ray machines”.

TSA workers’ union objects to replacement plan

The labour union representing TSA workers criticised Mr Trump’s decision, saying their members spend months in training learning to detect explosives and weapons.

“Our members at TSA have been showing up every day, without a pay cheque, because they believe in the mission of keeping the flying public safe,” Mr Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement.

“They deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be.”

Unlike TSA employees, ICE agents have continued to get paid by the government through a separate funding provision while lawmakers debate whether ICE funding should be tied to new rules and procedures.

The Democrats have said new rules are needed after masked ICE agents fatally shot two US citizens in the streets of Minneapolis earlier in 2026. The two had come out to protest or observe Mr Trump’s unprecedented deportation surge in Minnesota.

Mr Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat and the minority leader in the US House of Representatives, told CNN that his caucus is open to a separate funding agreement for TSA employees while lawmakers debate measures to “get ICE under control”.

But there has been little movement on an actual deal so far, especially in the Senate. REUTERS