ICE agents deployed to assist at airport security checkpoints

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Monday morning, according to media reports the Trump administration shared on social media. The agents were there to assist U.S. Transportation Security Administration personnel who had reportedly gone without pay for more than a month due to a partial government shutdown, the administration said. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees both ICE and TSA, declined to confirm to WORLD the locations of its agents, citing security reasons. But CNN on Monday published a list of 13 airports where ICE agents would be deployed, citing an anonymous source with knowledge about the matter.

Why are ICE agents heading to airports? President Donald Trump on Sunday said that this week ICE agents would assist short-staffed and unpaid TSA agents at airports. Most of DHS has gone without funding for more than a month as Congress remains deadlocked over how to fund the agency following oversight concerns about Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. While the shutdown has stripped funding for much of the agency, the agencies involved in carrying out Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda still have funding through provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Congress passed last year.

Why are ICE agents going to airports? Over the past month, roughly 400 TSA agents have quit their jobs, DHS told WORLD. Thousands more have been calling out from work on a daily basis. On Sunday alone, nearly 12% of TSA’s workforce nationwide called out from work—roughly 3,500 agents total. The agency also provided WORLD with a breakdown of what percentage of the agency’s employees were calling out from work at some of the country’s biggest airports that day: