Travelers at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport are being warned of potential wait times exceeding four hours.
This inconvenience stems from a partial government shutdown, which has resulted in TSA agents not receiving their salaries.
For over six weeks, TSA employees have been required to report to work without pay.
As a result, a significant number of these agents are opting to call in sick.
In response, President Trump announced on Sunday that he plans to deploy ICE agents to airports.
He stated on Truth Social, “If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will 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.”
“I look forward to seeing ICE in action at our Airports.”
But ICE agents at the airports appear to have made little difference to queue lengths.
Passengers have been taking photos of the heavily armed agents standing around doing nothing at airports across the US.
Meanwhile, the head of the TSA’s union Everett Kelley has decried their use.
“TSA officers spend months learning to detect explosives, weapons and threats specifically designed to evade detection at checkpoints,” Kelley said.
“You cannot improvise that.
“Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap. It creates one.”
“This has nothing to do with public safety because it’s making everyone less safe,” she said.
“This is all just meant to intimidate. The cruelty is the point.”
The TSA are unfortunate casualties in a standoff between Democrats and the Trump administration.
Democrats have refused to vote on funding the Department of Homeland Security unless major changes are made to ICE.
They want to require ICE agents to wear identification and not wear masks, wear body cameras and only enter private property with a judicial warrant.
ICE would be prohibited from carrying out immigration enforcement operations at hospitals, schools, childcare facilities, churches, polling places and courts.
But the Trump administration has refused, resulting in funding getting cut for the Department, which includes the TSA.
Yesterday Democrats put forward a bill that would ensure that TSA agents would get paid, but it was knocked back by Republicans.
While TSA agents aren’t getting paid, ICE agents are, thanks to funding in Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill that was passed last year.
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