Passengers stand in line at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., March 27, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Heuer
When President Donald Trump sent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to airports on Monday, March 23, his hardcore MAGA allies applauded the move as a way to make things easier for overwhelmed Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers — who have been working without pay and coping with long airport lines during a partial federal government shutdown. But the presence of ICE agents didn't make those lines any shorter. Airline passenger Will Frampton told MS NOW's Chris Jansing that he showed up five hours early for a flight out of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport only to spent nine hours in line and miss his flight.
In an article published on March 27, Wired reporter Aarian Marshall details the frustrations of TSA workers — who complained that ICE agents did nothing to make their jobs easier.
"ICE agents were deployed to at least 14 airports on Monday, ostensibly in an effort to speed up security lines — and five days into ICE's incursion, airport employees are infuriated," Marshall reports. "The ICE agents, transportation security officers (TSOs) who work for the TSA tell Wired, don't have the proper certification and training to perform many of tasks that might truly speed up security lines. The TSA employees say they're frustrated by the situation— and worried about what it might mean for their future."
Hydrick Thomas, an airport security officer and union leader in the New York City/North Jersey area, told Wired, "If you want to bring a tactical force into an environment where it's required to have customer service and a mindset where you know what you're doing, how to identify something that might be suspicious — they don't have that training."
Some of the interviewees expressed frustration that ICE agents are being employed during the shutdown while TSA employees aren't.
Aaron Barker, president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 554, told Wired, "To have them come in.… while officers are not receiving a paycheck, I feel like it's a waste. It's a waste of money that could have been coming into officers' bank accounts."