ICE agents expected to deploy to Philly and other airports across the country, reports say

Philadelphia International Airport and other airports across the United States are expected to see Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel deployed Monday, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Sunday.

At issue is a partial government shutdown, which has caused security wait times at airports to balloon across the country as Transportation Security Administration workers miss paychecks and call out from work.

Philadelphia is among the list of airports to which ICE personnel are planning to deploy, according to multiple reports. Other cities include Pittsburgh, Newark, Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, Phoenix, and two in New York City — John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia, where a collision between an airplane and a fire truck has shut down operations until Monday afternoon.

ICE agents were spotted at Atlanta Monday morning.

A PHL spokesperson directed inquiries to the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond to a request for comment Monday morning.

DHS issued a statement Sunday night saying the government was “using every tool available to help American travelers” as Easter and spring break near.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Donald Trump threatened to send U.S. ICE agents to airports Thursday unless congressional Democrats agreed to a Republican-backed funding deal, escalating a standoff that has already slowed security lines at airports nationwide.

Three TSA checkpoints in Philadelphia have been temporarily closed due to TSA staffing shortages. The terminals themselves are open for flights.

While long lines in Philadelphia have backed up travelers in the early-morning hours as the checkpoints first open, wait times have remained normal during the day, according to the airport’s security checkpoint live tracker.

In a post to Truth Social Sunday, Trump said the ICE agents would “do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia.”

Speaking on CNN Sunday, White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed ICE agents would deploy to airports across the U.S. beginning Monday, though he didn’t offer a specific timeline or say which airports would receive agents first.

“ICE has been at airports across the country for a long time. It’s just expanding those things,” Homan said.

Homan said he had no concerns about placing ICE agents into airport security roles without specific training, despite numerous high-profile incidents across the country in recent months, including the shooting deaths of two American citizens in Minneapolis in January — Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Homan on the rapid timeline of the deployment, asking how ICE agents could be prepared if a plan was being worked on less than 24 hours before they were expected to be dealing with passengers.

“I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine, because they’re not trained for that,” Homan said. “But there are certain parts of security that TSA’s doing that we can move them off those jobs and put them in the specialized jobs to help move those lines.”

Everett Kelley, National President of the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents of TSA officers, condemned the plan.

“ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security,” Kelley said in a statement Sunday. “TSA officers spend months learning to detect explosives, weapons, and threats specifically designed to evade detection at checkpoints — skills that require specialized instruction, hands-on practice, and ongoing recertification. You cannot improvise that. Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap. It creates one.”

But Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy seemed to contradict Homan about what ICE agents would and wouldn’t be doing, in an appearance on ABC Sunday.

“TSA agents are law enforcement. They know how to pat people down, they know how to run the X-ray machines because they are under Homeland Security with TSA,” Duffy said. “So if we can bring in other assets and tools to assist TSA to get rid of these lines, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.”

TSA agents are set to miss another paycheck Friday if members of Congress can’t agree on a deal to fund DHS.

Friday also happens to be last day both the House and Senate are scheduled to be in session in Washington, D.C., before lawmakers take a two-week break.

“I can’t see us taking a break here in the next week if DHS isn’t funded,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) told reporters last week.

Duffy warned if TSA agents miss another paycheck, enough could call out from work to force the closure of some airports.

“They’re about to miss another payment. This is going to look like child’s play, what’s happening right now,” Duffy said during an interview on CNBC Thursday. “You’re going to see small airports, I believe, shut down. You’re going to see extensive lines.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.