ICE agents, pictured here in New York City, have begun deploying at some U.S. airports amid the partial government shutdown
(Anadolu via Getty Images)
Trump administration officials have said that immigration agents haven’t been deployed to airports to replace absent TSA officers. Rather, ICE is in place to help keep things moving efficiently so that TSA employees can focus on the duties that only they are trained to do, they said.
“I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine, because they’re not trained in that, but there are certain parts of security that TSA is doing and we can move them off those jobs and put them in the specialized jobs and help move those lines,” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told CNN on Sunday.
That message was echoed by TSA Deputy Administrator Adam Stahl, who told Fox News that ICE personnel would be focused on “nonspecialized security support” tasks, such as “manning the exit lanes, crowd management [and] line control.”
Homan said Monday morning that ICE agents were not being sent to airports to conduct immigration arrests, but that they would act if the situation called for it.
“If they see criminal activity, they’re federal law enforcement, they should take action,” he said.
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