It’s a bad time to be a Transportation Security Officer at La Guardia, reports Curbed Magazine, especially with fatal airport crashes, canceled flights, long, snaking lines and a government shutdown forcing TSA officers to work for free.
But then comes the very well-paid ICE agents to stand behind you while you work for free. That, said La Guardia TSA officer and union president Kyle Pigott, is a step too far.
“[ICE] is the reason that we’re not getting paid,” Pigott told Curbed. “And now I’m working next to that person. And they’re getting paid to do nothing.”
TSA agents have been laboring without pay for weeks amid an ongoing shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, with Democrats refusing to agree to a Homeland Security funding bill without measures to rein in ICE and CBP agents. Democrats insisted on new citizen protection tactics after a slate of ICE-related killings under President Donald Trump.
“A tweet went out and the next day they’re at the airport walking around sipping coffees, holding on to their vest. They arrived on Monday, and now they’re hanging out in the break room doing nothing. They’re warming up their lunch. I don’t know what you’re hungry from — you didn’t do anything!” ranted Pigott.
Meanwhile, Pigott said he and other agents were missing two and a half paychecks by Wednesday. Some have had to take out unemployment assistance or resort to predatory loans to pay reoccurring bills, including car and mortgage.
Additionally, Pigott said he resented agents’ insistence on dressing like they are in a war in the middle of an airport.
“Why do you need your vest and gun to move a line? That’s weird,” said Pigott. “If police said they were going to come in and help you move a bag or a tray, I don’t think they’d come in riot gear. It’s gonna make anybody feel uncomfortable. Don’t you guys have ICE T-shirts? Don’t they have ICE polos?”
Pigott said news scenes of near-empty processing airport lines by midday had nothing to do with the addition of Homeland Security agents and their hot lunches.
“If you’re coming with a news camera crew at 9 or 10 a.m. and you’re like, ‘The line’s not here,’ it’s because we’ve been working on it since 4 a.m. Once you get it chugging, it’s going to keep going, but you’ve gotta push the boulder first. Show up at 4 a.m. when it’s a standstill and the lines are going down the steps — that’s when it’s terrible.”
Pigott added that unless U.S. leaders agree to a funding solution the lines will only get longer, regardless of how many ICE agents Trump assigns to stand around and look tough.
“[A]t the end of the day, what’s going to happen? There’s gonna be less and less people coming into work. ICE is there, but it doesn’t make the line any shorter,” said Pigott. “They don’t make the machines move faster.”