Lines are shortening in airports such as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, one day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrived to more than a dozen airports to assist the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) amid the partial government shutdown.
Fox News Business reported a “remarkable” change in the TSA line at the Atlanta airport on Tuesday.
“It is exponentially different here today than it was this time yesterday, over the weekend. As you can see, there is a very short line right now,” a reporter on the ground said, noting that they do not know if it is simply a light travel day or due to ICE agents assisting with crowd control and ID checks.
Images of the line show a night and day difference from the chaos that unraveled over the weekend into Monday, when TSA wait times exceeded four hours at some airport terminals nationwide.
This new reality comes as critics sharply spoke out against the decision to send ICE agents to airports to alleviate the pileups.
“More than 50,000 TSA employees have worked without pay for over five weeks. Hundreds have quit. And Washington’s answer isn’t to pay them. It’s to send ICE agents to do their jobs,” American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) President Everett Kelley said in a March 22 statement, ahead of ICE agents arriving at the airports:
ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security. TSA officers spend months learning to detect explosives, weapons, and threats specifically designed to evade detection at checkpoints — skills that require specialized instruction, hands-on practice, and ongoing recertification. You cannot improvise that. Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap. It creates one.
Our members at TSA have been showing up every day, without a paycheck, because they believe in the mission of keeping the flying public safe. They deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be.
“Congress has the power to fund TSA today,” he added. “It’s time for them to stop playing politics and do their jobs.”
Tuesday marks Day 39 of the partial shutdown as Congress struggles to come to an agreement to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As a result, thousands of TSA workers have called out of work, with call-outs exceeding well over 3,000 on both Saturday and Sunday.
