ICE agents were deployed to major US airports on Monday, 23 March 2026, as a partial government shutdown pushed TSA staffing to a breaking point and left travellers facing security wait times of up to two hours or more. President Donald Trump ordered the deployment on Sunday after Congress failed to pass a DHS funding bill for the fifth consecutive time.
TSA’s more than 50,000 officers have been working without their regular paychecks since the partial government shutdown began in mid-February.
Hundreds of TSA officers have quit since the shutdown started, according to their union, the American Federation of Government Employees. The crisis is unfolding at the worst possible time: peak spring break travel season.
Why is this happening?
The shutdown comes as Democrats in Congress demand changes to how federal immigration enforcement operates in exchange for releasing DHS funding, following two US citizens who were shot and killed by federal officers in Minneapolis.
Last week, Congress failed to advance a DHS funding bill for the fifth time, leaving TSA, FEMA and other agencies without funding. ICE, on the other hand, still has plenty of funding after Congress allocated the agency billions of dollars last summer as part of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
On Sunday night, Trump complicated negotiations further. In a Truth Social post, he said he would not accept any deal to fund DHS unless Democrats backed the “SAVE America Act,” a federal elections overhaul bill that faces near-impossible odds in the Senate.
How bad are the delays?
Wait times at major hubs in Houston and Atlanta reached two hours on Friday, while New Orleans’s Louis Armstrong International Airport advised passengers to arrive at least three hours before their scheduled departures.
In Philadelphia, airport officials closed three security checkpoints entirely because of short staffing.
At John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday morning, one traveller who arrived at 04:45 for a 07:00 flight made it through security just in time for boarding after nearly two hours in line.
At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, mounting TSA lines forced travellers to queue all the way back to the baggage claim area on Sunday. At least four major airports have stopped providing estimated wait times altogether.
What exactly will ICE agents be doing at airports?
White House border czar Tom Homan, who is overseeing the deployment, said ICE agents will not be doing specialised security scanning.
“Certainly, a highly trained ICE law enforcement officer can cover an exit and make sure people don’t go through those exits,” he said, adding that this would free up TSA officers to focus on screening and reduce lines.
ICE agents are expected to wear their marked gear and help with crowd control.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens confirmed agents would be at Hartsfield-Jackson, stating that “this deployment is not intended to conduct immigration enforcement activities” and that all federal personnel would report directly to TSA.
However, the plan has drawn sharp criticism. American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley said in a statement that replacing unpaid TSA workers with ICE agents is “not a solution, but a dangerous escalation,” stressing that TSA officers spend months developing highly specialised skills to detect explosives, weapons and sophisticated threats.
What happens next?
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned that wait times at airports would get much worse if Congress does not fund DHS by the end of next week, when TSA workers are set to miss another paycheck.
“I think you’re going to see more TSA agents, as we come to Thursday, Friday, Saturday of next week, they’re going to quit or they’re not going to show up,” Duffy said.
Some 2.8 million people were projected to travel on US airlines each day in March and April, adding up to a record 171 million passengers, according to the industry group Airlines for America.
With no funding deal in sight and spring break travel at its peak, the pressure on both Congress and the White House to resolve the impasse is mounting fast.
