‘Security like no one has ever seen’

ICE agents are not trained to run airport security checkpoints
Writing on Truth Social from his West Palm Beach, Florida golf course, Trump demanded that Democrats “immediately” reach an agreement to fund DHS and “let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again.”
He warned that a failure to fund the department would force him to “move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before.”
But the law enforcement personnel working for ICE do not have any training in the airport security tasks overseen by TSA.

Continuing, Trump said ICE agents deployed to airports would carry out “the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia” and accused Somalis in the U.S.

— most of whom are U.S.

citizens — of having “totally destroyed” Minnesota.

“I look forward to seeing ICE in action at our Airports,” he added.

The approximately 50,000-strong TSA workforce has been forced to work without pay since a temporary DHS funding bill expired five weeks ago.

But the Trump administration has refused to accede to most of those requests and has continued to fund immigration enforcement from a massive partisan spending package that was enacted last year while letting TSA and other DHS components remain on the job without pay or be furloughed.

The result has been increasing chaos at American airports as travelers have been forced to wait in hours-long lines due to a shortage of TSA staff.

Many of the those who work for the TSA are still grappling with debts incurred during last year's 43-day government shutdown and are now just six days away from missing a second full paycheck.

At least 366 officers have quit their jobs.

Acting deputy TSA administrator Adam Stahl warned that the agency was “fully stretched.”
“If this continues, it’s not hyperbole to suggest that we may have to quite literally shut down airports,” Stahl said this week.

“The reality of the situation is this is going to get worse before it gets better, if we don’t see any sort of action.”
A TSA spokesperson blamed Democrats for the situation in a statement to The Independent, accusing them of “shamelessly playing politics with national security” and “punishing hardworking TSA workers and their families.”
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