A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
It's Day 38 of the partial government shutdown, with no end in sight.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
TSA agents have been working without pay, and each day, more of them quit or call in sick. It's causing long security lines at airports across the country. President Trump's solution to alleviate the delays? Send in Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to help. Starting today, he says he's deploying hundreds of ICE agents to airports across the country.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Luke Garrett is on the story. Luke, what do we know about this deployment?
LUKE GARRETT, BYLINE: Well, it all started with a post on social media. On Sunday, President Trump directed federal immigration agents to report to airports the next day. The goal, Trump says, is to help TSA officers who are facing staffing shortages. Trump turned to one of his favorite fixers, White House Border Czar Tom Homan, to lead the ICE deployments to U.S. airports.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So what's Homan saying about how this is all going to work?
GARRETT: Well, Homan said he's still working on the final plan. What he said is that, you know, ICE agents will guard the exits and entry points at the nation's busiest airports. Notably, though, he told CNN these immigration agents, you know, will likely stay away from the specialized airport security work.
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TOM HOMAN: I don't see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine because they're not trained in that. 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.
GARRETT: But there was some confusion about the plan, because Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, you know, told ABC News ICE could work those TSA security lines.
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SEAN DUFFY: They know how to pat people down. They know how to run the X-ray machines because they are, again, under homeland security.
GARRETT: These mixed messages are raising a lot of questions over what exactly ICE agents will do at U.S. airports. DHS didn't give me many more details when I reached out to them. In a statement, spokeswoman Lauren Bis blamed Democrats for the airport delays. Bis also told NPR hundreds of ICE officers will be deployed to, quote, "adversely impacted" airports.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. So ICE officers. Why tap ICE agents for this?
GARRETT: So one reason is money. Last summer, the GOP-controlled Congress passed billions in spending for ICE, and that money lets ICE keep the lights on and pay its agents. Meanwhile, the rest of DHS, which includes TSA, can't pay their workers during this partial shutdown. So Trump is basically shifting workers within DHS to solve this immediate problem of, you know, airport staff shortages.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So what are we hearing from Democrats, then?
GARRETT: So House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries threw the blame back at the White House and the GOP-controlled Congress. Here's Jeffries on CNN.
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HAKEEM JEFFRIES: The last thing that the American people need are for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country.
GARRETT: And the White House is also facing some pushback from the union representing TSA workers. Here's the union's policy director, Jacqueline Simon.
JACQUELINE SIMON: It will be easier for somebody with malintent to get through a security checkpoint with an untrained ICE agent there instead of a trained transportation security officer.
GARRETT: Simon says, you know, the TSA workers just want to get paid for their work, and they're furious at the prospect that Congress might go on recess before making a deal on DHS.
MARTÍNEZ: Luke, one more question. Will ICE continue their immigration work as they assist TSA?
GARRETT: So Homan did address this very question. In short, yes, according to him. The border czar said ICE has done immigration enforcement at airports before, and this new deployment doesn't change that. But, again, we're getting some mixed messages here. Atlanta's mayor, Andre Dickens, said in a statement that he believed ICE wouldn't conduct immigration enforcement at his city's airport.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Luke Garrett. Luke, thanks a lot.
GARRETT: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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