President Trump announced Sunday that ICE officers will deploy to airports across the country starting Monday to help clear security lines that have ballooned to three hours at some of the nation's busiest hubs.

As reported by the Post, the move comes as roughly 50,000 TSA agents continue working without pay during a partial government shutdown now entering its 36th day.

The situation on Sunday was ugly. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport saw three-hour waits. Houston's George Bush International Airport hit two hours. JFK topped an hour. LaGuardia's Terminal B had nearly two-hour lines Sunday morning. At Philadelphia International Airport, security lines backed up to the Marriott hotel on the premises by 6 a.m.

Reuters reporter Jarrett Renshaw captured the scene on X: "I have never seen a line this long in Philly."

Thousands of TSA screeners have called in sick since February 14. More than 400 have quit their jobs altogether. And more pain is coming: TSA workers are set to miss paychecks on Friday.

The plan

Trump tapped border czar Tom Homan to lead the airport operation and began mobilizing ICE agents on Saturday. The president framed the deployment as a direct response to Democratic obstruction.

"On Monday, ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful TSA Agents who have stayed on the job despite the fact that the Radical Left Democrats, who are only focused on protecting hard line criminals who have entered our Country illegally, are endangering the USA by holding back the money that was long ago agreed to with signed and sealed contracts, and all."

Homan, speaking on CNN's "State of the Union," offered specifics on how the arrangement would work. ICE agents won't be running X-ray machines. They'll take over non-specialized tasks that TSA is currently handling, freeing up trained screeners to do what only they can do.

"I don't see an ICE agent looking at an x-ray machine – because you're not trained in that – [but] there are certain parts of security that TSA is doing that we can move them off those jobs and put them in the specialized jobs to help move those lines."

Discussions about how many ICE agents will deploy are ongoing. Homan said the team would finalize the plan Sunday and execute Monday. The logic is straightforward: ICE, unlike TSA, was funded through last summer's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The agency has resources. TSA does not.

A shutdown Democrats own

TSA ran out of funding more than a month ago. The reason is not mysterious.

Democrats have demanded that the Department of Homeland Security implement several immigration enforcement reforms as a condition for federal funding. Republicans have pushed to fund DHS. Democrats have sought standalone funding for agencies like TSA that would exclude immigration operations, effectively trying to starve enforcement while keeping the parts of government they like.

The White House has not been inflexible. Last week, the administration signaled it would support expanding body-worn cameras for ICE agents, limiting immigration enforcement around schools and hospitals, increasing oversight of ICE detention facilities, and requiring officers to wear ID badges. That is a meaningful list of concessions.

Democrats are seeking additional measures, including a ban on agents wearing masks and face coverings and a requirement for ICE to obtain judicial warrants before entering private property.

So, travelers are standing in three-hour security lines because Democrats want to dictate the operational procedures of immigration enforcement. Every hour a family spends snaking through a terminal with their shoes off and their kids crying is an hour that exists because congressional Democrats decided leverage over ICE matters more than a functioning airport.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, speaking on ABC's "This Week," did not sugarcoat where this is heading.

"I think you're going to see more TSA agents, as we come to Thursday, Friday, Saturday of next week, they're going to quit or they're not going to show up."

"So I do think it's going to get much worse."

The Jeffries response tells you everything

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries went on "State of the Union" and delivered exactly the kind of reaction the president predicted. Trump had written Sunday that "no matter how great a job ICE does, the Lunatics leading the incompetent Dems will be highly critical of their work." Jeffries did not disappoint.

"The last thing the American people need are untrained ICE agents at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize or, in some instances, kill them."

Read that again. The House Minority Leader suggested, on national television, that ICE agents deployed to help manage security lines might kill American travelers. Not detain. Not inconvenience. Kill.

This is the same Democratic caucus that has blocked the funding that would let TSA agents receive their paychecks. The same caucus that refuses to fund DHS unless it can hamstring immigration enforcement. The same caucus whose policies created the conditions they now claim to be horrified by.

Jeffries then pivoted to arguing that Republicans are the ones "forcing TSA agents to work without pay" and creating "chaos at airports throughout the land." The party blocking the funding bill is blaming the party trying to pass it. The party that created the staffing crisis is attacking the solution to the staffing crisis.

This is how Democratic messaging works in 2026: break something, blame the people fixing it, and accuse the repair crew of potential homicide.

What Monday looks like

The details of the ICE deployment will become clearer as agents arrive at airports nationwide. Homan's framework makes operational sense. Every security checkpoint involves tasks that don't require screener certification: crowd management, document checks, queue logistics. Moving those off TSA's plate lets screeners screen. Lines move.

The deeper problem remains the shutdown itself. TSA agents are being asked to show up for work, stand on their feet for hours, and do one of the more thankless jobs in federal service, all without a paycheck. That is not sustainable, and Duffy is right that attrition will accelerate as Friday's missed payday arrives.

The ICE deployment is a bridge. It buys time. But the clock is running, and the people holding up funding know exactly what they're doing. They've calculated that the political value of constraining ICE outweighs the cost of grounding American air travel.

Fifty thousand federal employees are working for free. Millions of travelers are trapped in lines that stretch to hotel lobbies. And the only thing standing between the country and a funded TSA is a Democratic caucus that won't take yes for an answer.