ICE agents have been deployed to help at airports around the country to shorten TSA wait times, but on their first day, airports remained busy with long lines.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
ICE agents have been deployed to about a dozen airports across the country.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Many transportation and security agents are calling in sick or quitting after working more than a month without pay due to a partial government shutdown. But ICE agents don’t appear to have made security lines move any faster.
MARTIN: Sofi Gratas with Georgia Public Broadcasting saw wait times of up to five hours on Monday at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. She’s with us now. Sofi, good morning.
SOFI GRATAS, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So what else did you see?
GRATAS: Well, most of the ICE agents have been kind of walking around near the main security checkpoints at the airport and just observing the area. They weren’t wearing any face coverings, and they seemed to be doing more patrolling than actually helping with security lines. And besides Atlanta, ICE isn’t really saying publicly where else agents have been deployed. We do know they’ve been seen at about a dozen airports, including in Houston, and that’s where Ariana Basulto was trying to get home to Charlotte for a second day on Monday from George Bush Intercontinental Airport. On Sunday, she said, she was in line for three hours.
ARIANA BASULTO: I just missed my flight by two minutes. I had to book another flight for $300. Yeah. I got here five hours early, thinking it was not going to – like it was going to look like what it did yesterday. It looks way worse than what it did yesterday.
GRATAS: So yeah. Even with those ICE agents deployed, lines had not gotten much shorter.
MARTIN: And you were saying that ICE agents don’t seem to be doing things like physically running security checkpoints or checking bags. So what are they doing?
GRATAS: Well, it’s not really clear. In Atlanta, the mayor said that ICE would mainly be in charge of crowd control in the domestic terminal and that they would report directly to TSA officers as long as they’re there. Anne Demming (ph) had just arrived in Atlanta when she said that she got some help from one ICE agent finding the airport shuttle.
ANNE DEMMING: And he was like, oh, yeah, just go downstairs. I mean, nothing too major, but yeah (laughter). But super nice, super helpful.
GRATAS: So yeah. In Atlanta, it’s mostly crowd control. But the TSA union, in the meantime, says that it’s against having these agents work security because they’re not trained to do that. And there’s also frustration over the fact that these ICE agents are getting paid while TSA officers are not.
MARTIN: What else were you hearing from people about the presence of ICE at these airport checkpoints?
GRATAS: Well, yeah. Most people I spoke with said they didn’t really understand why ICE needed to be at the airport at all because most of them were just observed walking around. One traveler waiting in line said he was actually happy to see ICE agents and applauded President Trump for sending them. But others, like Sam Rosales, who was traveling on Monday, said seeing ICE agents walking around the airport felt strange.
SAM ROSALES: It’s very unsettling to have them, you know, in the presence of, you know, everyday stuff, not really protecting borders in Atlanta.
GRATAS: And again, despite having that extra manpower, people were still dealing with long lines.
MARTIN: And what are officials saying about security lines in Atlanta going forward?
GRATAS: So we know that hundreds of TSA officers have quit and that more than 40% in Atlanta had called out of work over the weekend. And the airport website that would normally show wait times instead just tells passengers to come four hours ahead of their flight. Yesterday evening, there was a little lull with shorter lines. And TSA officers that I spoke with said, don’t be fooled – that as long as they’re not paid, there’s likely no end in sight to long lines at peak hours. And one more thing, President Trump has said that he could deploy the National Guard to airports if this drags on any further.
MARTIN: That’s Sofi Gratas with Georgia Public Broadcasting in Atlanta. Sofi, thank you.
GRATAS: Thank you.
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