USA Trump: ICE officers on duty at airports on Monday
In light of the dispute over continued funding for the US Department of Homeland Security, President Donald Trump wants to deploy the controversial immigration agency ICE at airports. "On Monday, ICE will be deployed at airports to support our great TSA officers," he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
22.03.2026, 15:27
SDA
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is responsible for passenger security screening at airports and, like ICE, is under the Department of Homeland Security.
Major problems at airports
There have been traffic jams at the country's airports for days: Passengers in Atlanta or Houston, for example, also waited for hours for a TSA check on Sunday and missed their flights despite having enough buffer time. Due to the budget blockade that has been ongoing since mid-February, civil servants are currently not being paid and many have called in sick as a result. Democrats and Republicans have been blaming each other ever since.
Trump had already vaguely announced the deployment on Saturday (local time). The officers are to take care of security at the airports "better than ever before". "MAKE YOURSELVES READY", he wrote in quotation marks.
Known for rigorous action
It remains unclear what exactly the ICE officers are supposed to do at the airports. It also remained unclear whether they would be deployed at all US airports or only those with particularly long queues or chaotic conditions.
The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is primarily responsible for immigration control at US airports, while passenger security checks are the responsibility of the TSA. ICE officers have so far mainly been deployed in the interior of the country to deport undocumented migrants and have made negative headlines due to their rigorous approach to raids. At the beginning of the year, two Americans died when ICE officers shot at them.
