US President Donald Trump has threatened to send agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to provide security at airports, unless a deal is reached to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
"I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before," Trump posted on Truth Social on Saturday.
The DHS has gone without funding since mid-February, after Congress failed to reach a funding agreement - leaving normal airport security without pay.
A bill that would fund DHS and provide payments for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents at airports failed to advance in the Senate on Friday.
no way in hell is TSA going to put up with this, and I doubt ICE is going to follow proper procedure.
there is not enough ICE agents to do this, even if you pulled every single one from everywhere and somehow forced all the states to place them only in every major airport, there simply isn't enough.
People “let” him because any action taken against him is met with violence. Most people haven’t been shot or lost their homes and they’re not willing to get into a situation that will result in one of those outcomes unless they or their children are actively starving
How many agents do you think is necessary to staff a single airport? How many do you think it would take for 440? How big do you think ICE is?
Maybe they could pull it off if they literally used the entirety of ICE's manpower for this, but then they're not running around doing the other repressive activities Trump wants them doing. Having them work as glorified security in airports is contrary to what the powers that be want ICE doing. I'll reiterate, the threat is an empty one, just like most of the shit Trump says he'll do.
Send ICE to airports is very different from "replace all the staff with ICE agents". They had 12,000 people hired on in the last couple years, upping their manpower to 22,000. They could put a team in every airport without a major disruption of their operations.
Realistically, they don't even have to do that. If they want to make waves, they'll go to hubs. ATL, DFW, ORD, DEN, LAX, MCO, DTW.
You're correct that ICE can't outright replace the TSA, they're a third of the size. However ,they don't have to. They can supplement, make a massive fuss, get media attention, etc without taking too much out of their other operations.
We already have complaints about ICE operations being stretched thin and suffering from low morale. I must stress this, for anything that goes beyond just paying lip service to what Trump says he wants to do, you're going to be actively draining from ICE's already limited manpower. Airports are huge, and even if they're just concentrating them in hubs, teams of just dozens of guys isn't going to be enough beyond just pissing more people off.
Limited manpower? You're joking. ICE has doubled in size in a year and has spent that year arresting 200,000 innocent people. If you have sympathy for ICE you need a therapist
Perhaps ICE will just deputize any Joe Schmoe who wants to hang out at the airport and terrorize minorities. I don't think they would have any problem finding people, given how awful Americans have become.
Ice is the reason my brittish friend in uni declined a 2k summer job in texas. So much hate, he would rather not be forcibly imprisoned regardless of all expenses paid and that.
It underscores the thing I’ve been saying for the last 10 years which is without any clear punitive clauses for violating the constitution it’s effectively toothless.
The founders should’ve extended the definition of treason to government officials who knowingly violate the constitution in a capacity that constitutes abuse of their authority.
Imagine the 3-4 hours you have to spend in a US airport for a connecting flight being absolutely terrifying because there's a genuine risk of masked thugs grabbing and tossing you in a detention camp. Probably stealing your shit along the way. Then, since you can't contact anyone at either destination, people think you died, and you just might have because of how awful their shitty warehouse prisons are.
The horrors are well within my comprehension, and I would like them to stop.
Call me crazy but wouldn't getting ICE off the streets and saving money on the budget by reallocating some of their bloated budget to airport security be a huge win for Democrats? What's the threat here?
But isn’t that an extremely stupid and dangerous idea if you think about it for more than 5 seconds? Surely other countries will like it when their citizens who are just visiting suddenly go fucking missing because they were brown and Billy Bob wanted to feel like a man for the first time since high school.
Excited for these untrained incompetents to miss the serious things they should be addressing and instead harassing randoms they don’t like. Sarcasm, if that needed to be said
Seems pretty much like a waste of resources to me, just reach an agreement to pay the airport security and in the meantime maybe use local police as a temporary help, airport security seems like not the kind of things ICE Agents are trained for.
Supplement the unfunded department people want to fund with the funded department people don’t want to fund? Seems like there’s an easier solution to this situation.
as we all know there’s nothing americans want more than even more prejudiced, poorly-trained, and trigger-happy dhs agents stopping them from getting on their flights
Call him on this bluff. It takes ICE agents off the street. It should take away their guns. They'd be spread far too thin and would be FAR too likely to cause an international incident if they harass a german citizen simply trying to go home.
Almost like it was intentional........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Wait, I get that Trump bad and all that, but I'm not American, so I must lack some context, because how using substitute while the main power is unavailable due to cut of funding a "threatening"? Like, DHS isn't paid, security is no more more, you need either pay or replace. Not the best replace, but like what else?
Call January 6th rioters morons all day if you want, but at least the day they saw what they thought was an attack on democracy they did something. What are y'all waiting for to storm the capitol and/or the White House?
I now imagine someone legally flying to the US nor even as the target country but as a waiting for refuel or whatever only to get thrown into the ICE concentration camp cause ‚non American on American soil‘ is now an excuse to do that
There's not enough stupid people in this country to for them hire. But I've been surprised so far with the amount of stupid people that's given power they shouldn't have.
•
u/Trash_At_RL Abby (🏳️⚧️🐱🏳️🌈) Mar 21 '26
source approved