Tom Homan says ICE agents will assist at crowded airport security points amid TSA staffing shortages
The shutdown, which began when Senate lawmakers failed to reach an agreement to fund DHS, led TSA agents to call out or quit en masse as they went without pay for weeks. More than 400 TSA agents across the country have resigned since the shutdown began.
In a separate interview Sunday on ABC, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pinned the long TSA lines on Democrats.
“Democrats want to see long lines at airports as leverage,” Duffy said.
The secretary added that he expects to see more TSA agents resign this week.
“I think you’re going to see more TSA agents as we get to Thursday, Friday, Saturday of next week, they’re going to resign or they’re not going to show up,” Duffy said. “I think the situation is going to get worse, and as the situation gets worse, I think it puts pressure on Congress to come to a resolution.”
By sending ICE agents to airports, “President Trump is trying to remove that leverage and not make the American people suffer,” the Transportation Secretary added.
In a rare Saturday session, senators failed to pass a standalone bill to fund the TSA, with Republicans blocking Democrats’ efforts in a 41-49 vote.
On Friday, Democrats blocked Republican efforts to fully fund DHS in a 47-37 vote missed by 16 senators.
“It’s unacceptable that workers and travelers at entire airports are held hostage in political games, but that’s what Republicans are doing,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Saturday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., accused Democrats of prolonging the shutdown.
“Thanks to Democrats’ refusal to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Thousands of Homeland Security employees have been working without pay for over a month. Problems with the Department of Homeland Security’s lack of funding continue to mount, and Democrats seem to just shrug their shoulders,” he said Saturday.
Since mid-February, a bipartisan group of senators has been negotiating to find a way to reopen the agency. Democrats have insisted that any funding bill include new requirements for ICE agents, such as requiring them to carry identification and preventing them from wearing face coverings.
Homan joined the negotiations at the Capitol last week and told CNN on Sunday that Democrats’ policy demands “have not changed.”
“It’s the execution of these policies that we’re talking about,” he added. “And look, we’re having good conversations, but, you know, more conversations need to happen, because we certainly can’t abandon ICE authorities and these are congressionally mandated tasks. So we’re having these discussions. It’s really about policy execution more than policy.”
Republicans have said they are willing to negotiate with Democrats on several policy areas, including expanding the use of body-worn cameras and requiring that footage from those cameras be preserved for congressional oversight. They also expressed willingness to limit the application of ICE in sensitive locations, including hospitals and schools.
ICE is unaffected by the ongoing DHS shutdown, as it received $75 billion in additional funds from the “big, beautiful bill,” the president’s major legislative agenda that he signed into law last year.
