Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and agents have mixed reactions to President Donald Trump’s plan to deploy them to airports to assist TSA during the partial government shutdown.
Trump announced the plan Saturday to begin the effort Monday in the hopes of reducing airport security wait times as TSA officers report massive staff shortages as they continue to go unpaid.
Multiple Department of Homeland Security sources told The Daily Wire that there’s word that the deployment will consist of agents from Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of ICE whose mission goes beyond just investigating immigration-related crimes. HSI special agents are tasked with child exploitation cases, cybercrimes, and the smuggling of antiquities.
They also maintain offices at several major airports across the United States, sources said.
One ICE source said they “wouldn’t mind” helping TSA, adding, “However, a lot of us have reached our overtime caps.”
“They would need to provide waivers … I don’t think it would jeopardize field arrests if that happens,” the source added.
A second ICE source emphatically said, “I’ll go.”
In response to a postal worker strike in 1970, President Richard Nixon deployed hundreds of soldiers with the Army, National Guard, Army Reserve, Air National Guard, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps Reserve to deliver Americans’ mail.
An ICE source said Trump should do the same.
“I think the National Guard or military reserves are better suited,” the source said.
Two recently-retired ICE officials also expressed their opposition.
“This is the problem. ICE are the tool that gets thrown around to do everything other than their job,” one of the retired officials said.
Another called Trump’s plan “profoundly misguided and reckless.”
“TSA officers receive specialized, intensive training in passenger screening, threat detection, and the use of advanced equipment training that ICE personnel, despite their excellence in interior enforcement, do not possess,” the retired officer said.
“Redirecting ICE agents from their current, highly effective operations where they maintain a proven rhythm in arresting and detaining those unlawfully present would undermine both airport security standards and nationwide immigration priorities,” the former fed added.
Another officer expressed concern with the optics as they’re increasingly perceived as “the gestapo” who are “harassing U.S. citizens.”
Trump tasked his border czar, Tom Homan, with leading the airport deployment.
Tom Homan says he’s working on the plan to deploy ICE agents to assist TSA at airports starting tomorrow. One area he said they’ll be able to help is monitoring airport exits, saying “I don‘t see an ICE agent looking at an x-ray machine because they‘re not trained in that.” pic.twitter.com/fEgdBs8XAv
— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) March 22, 2026
On Sunday, the former ICE director told CNN he’s working with the TSA administrator and ICE director to get a plan in place “by the end of today.”
“The ICE agents are assigned at many airports across the country already and they do a lot of criminal investigations on smuggling at airports. You’ve got TSA agents covering exits, people that enter through the exits, you know, surely a highly trained ICE law enforcement officer can cover an exit … that would leave that TSA officer to go to screening and to reduce those lines,” Homan said.
“I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine because they’re not trained in that. There’s certain parts of security that TSA’s doing that we can move them off those jobs and put them in the specialized jobs to help move those lines,” he added.
