ICE Agents Frustrate Airport Workers as Shutdown Drags On
ICE and ERO agents at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on March 23, 2026.
Photograph: Anthony Behar/AP Newsroom Save this story Save this story On Thursday, hours-long security lines snaked through New York City’s LaGuardia Airport.
The wait was far from the longest in the country—George Bush International Airport in Houston reported three and a half hour lines.
Over a month into a partial government shutdown that has left some Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees working without pay, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents are calling in sick or leaving work en masse, leading to travel chaos around the US.
The Trump administration’s solution?
Send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in.
ICE agents were deployed to at least 14 airports on Monday, ostensibly in an effort to speed up security lines—and five days into ICE’s incursion, airport employees are infuriated.
The ICE agents, Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) who work for the TSA tell WIRED, don’t have the proper certification and training to perform many of tasks that might truly speed up security lines.
The TSA employees say they’re frustrated by the situation—and worried about what it might mean for their future.
ICE agents have been spotted walking in packs, patrolling security lines and baggage areas.
They have been seen giving directions to lost passengers, photographed distributing mini water bottles to those waiting in line, and, more often than not, standing around and appearing to do very little.
“ICE are here and they’re doing literally nothing to help,” passengers in a security line overheard one airline worker complain on Wednesday at John F.
Kennedy airport in New York.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that some passengers stuck in line spotted ICE agents being trained to check passenger IDs and boarding passes.
In a hearing in front of the US House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday, TSA acting head Ha Nguyen McNeill said that “the travel document checker function is one of the nonspecialized screen functions of the TSA,” and said ICE agents are being trained to conduct checks.
