The federal immigration agents deployed to New York City’s airports this week do not appear to be assisting Transportation Security Administration workers in a meaningful way, which immigration advocates say raises questions about their actual purpose at the travel hubs.
President Donald Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan on Sunday announced the White House would deploy U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports across the country this week. Homan said the move aimed to help ease hourslong security lines that have worsened since the start of the partial government shutdown, which has prompted a spike in TSA employees calling out of work because they’re not being paid.
“There’s TSA agents covering exits,” Homan said during a CNN interview on Sunday. “Certainly a highly trained ICE law enforcement officer can cover an exit … and stuff like that relieves that TSA officer to go to screening and to reduce those lines.”
At JFK Airport earlier this week, a Gothamist reporter observed at least 15 ICE agents milling about in the terminals while news photographers took their photos. Another reporter witnessed a similar operation at LaGuardia Airport. The reporters did not see any of the immigration agents stationed at secured exits as Homan described.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Lauren Bis did not answer questions as to whether ICE agents deployed to the airports were responsible for guarding exits. In a statement, she said thousands of TSA officers have been calling out sick since the agency shut down more than a month ago over a congressional funding fight.
“President Trump is taking action — deploying hundreds of ICE officers, already funded by Congress, to support airports facing the greatest strain,” Bis said. “This step will strengthen TSA operations, help keep our skies safe and reduce disruptions for the traveling public.”
Murad Awawdeh, of the New York Immigration Coalition, said workers from his nonprofit have also been at the city airports this week and haven’t seen ICE officers do much beyond look at their phones.
“I don’t believe that their deployment to the airports is anything more than them trying to show that they’re trying to help … and then potentially trying to do more enforcement,” Awawdeh said.
“There’s nothing really to report on that other than they’re there and they’re just standing around on their phone,” he added.
On Tuesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani shared a number for the city’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and criticized the move to deploy ICE to the airports.
“ICE doesn’t belong at our airports,” Mamdani wrote.
Figures released by DHS show roughly 37% of TSA workers at JFK called out on Tuesday. At LaGuardia, more than 17% of the TSA workers called out, according to the data.
Ramsey Khalifeh contributed reporting to this story.
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