President Donald Trump had announced last weekend that he would deploy ICE to some U.S. airports this week.
This included Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, which saw lines of more than four hours in two terminals. This issue has been ongoing as TSA has been without funding for more than a month while Congress is deadlocked over immigration enforcement policy.
Jarrod Wardwell, who reports for the Houston Chronicle, said Bush airport has consistently had lines that stretch across multiple floors of the building.
“I was at Bush Airport early Monday morning around 6 a.m. before ICE was really visible throughout the terminals,” he said. “Lines were stretching three separate floors of the terminals — stretching from the usual departures floor down to baggage claim and even lower to the basement-level subway tracks that take passengers from one area of the airport to another.”
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Meanwhile, 30 miles away at the William P. Hobby Airport, which also had long lines earlier this month, wait times have decreased dramatically.
“Airport officials there actually requested national deployment officers that TSA offers for staffing shortages,” Wardwell said. “It has completely changed the situation and in recent days passengers have been coasting through TSA there in roughly 10 minutes or less in some cases.”
So far, Wardwell said it does not appear ICE agents have helped to reduce wait times in Houston.
“Airport officials here in Houston said TSA has only been able to staff a third to one half of their usual lanes at Bush Airport,” he said. “The role that ICE officers have mostly been playing has been guiding passengers across where lines may cut off through the winding lanes of the terminals and handing out water bottles as we’ve seen in some videos posted by reporters.”
This is in part because ICE agents are not trained to operate TSA screening check points, Wardwell said.
“That was actually a concern that the TSA Workers Union had raised, saying ICE officers aren’t trained or certified to do that kind of work,” he said.
Wardwell said there has been a mixed reaction among passengers about the presence of ICE in the airport.
“My colleague, Yvette Orozco, talked to several travelers at Hobby Airport earlier this week,” he said. “She got feedback ranging from support that they’re helping people out to some folks who are very skeptical about what help they really are offering — if they would increase intimidation for people who would be coming into the airport, just in light of the immigration enforcement raids that we’ve seen across the country.”
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In D.C., there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight for this shutdown, which has left TSA officers without pay for weeks.
“Republicans and Democrats in the Senate are still negotiating how to fund DHS. Democrats have, of course, been pushing and honestly demanding reforms to immigration enforcement practices,” Wardwell said.
“There’s yet to be a deal that has made it out of the Senate and reached President Donald Trump’s desk. And President Trump has not signaled support for any such deal yet. So until then, it appears to be more of the same at the airports in the near future.”
