ICE deployed to Sky Harbor amid TSA staffing shortages

ICE agents have been deployed to over a dozen airports across the nation, including Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. This is part of an effort to help airports around the country with Transport Security Administration staffing amid the ongoing partial government shutdown.

Hundreds of thousands of Homeland Security workers, including those from TSA, have worked without pay since Congress failed to renew DHS funding last month. Many TSA agents have called in sick, or even quite their jobs as the financial piled up. The staffing shortages have forced some airports to close checkpoints at times, with wait times swinging dramatically for travelers.

On the orders of President Donald Trump, about 50 ICE personnel per shift will be deployed at each airport and will not be performing screening duties. According to an ICE official, officers and agents are not trained to use magnetometers or X-ray machines that TSA agents operate and oversee at airports. ICE officers and agents are trained in crowd control, monitoring lines and checking IDs, skills that could be useful at airport lines leading to security screening, a separate ICE official said.

Boarding domestic flights requires Real ID or a passport, limiting immigration arrests at airports.

Leading Democrat Chuck Schumer says he will introduce a bill that would allow for the funding of the TSA alone so agents can get paid. Democrats are refusing to pass a DHS funding bill and demanding changes to immigration enforcement practices by federal agents following the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis in January.

John Sandweg, the former acting director of ICE and the former acting general counsel of DHS joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss how this impacts travelers and TSA staff.