President Donald Trump is now threatening to send ICE agents to airports to replace the hundreds of TSA officers quitting in droves.
Trump, 79, threatened to send ICE to assist in airport security lines if Congress does not pass funding for the Department of Homeland Security. About 50,000 TSA employees have been working without pay for weeks. Hundreds of TSA officers have quit or repeatedly called out since DHS was impacted by the partial government shutdown on Feb. 14, creating long lines at the airport.
“If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country,” Trump suggested in a Truth Social post on Saturday.
The president singled out Somali immigrants, a common tactic he has used in recent months amid his ongoing public attacks on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who is from Somalia. Trump has used racist rhetoric to target the Somali community, claiming they come from a “terrible, terrible place” and saying “they’re good at pirating ships at sea.”
Trump said ICE agents in airports will put a “heavy emphasis on those from Somalia, who have totally destroyed, with the approval of a corrupt Governor, Attorney General, and Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, the once Great State of Minnesota.”
“I look forward to seeing ICE in action at our Airports,” he wrote, concluding his Truth Social rant.
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House and DHS to confirm plans to deploy ICE in airports. The White House referred The Daily Beast back to the president’s Truth Social post.
Democrats have refused to sign off on further funding for DHS until the agency can agree to reform its immigration tactics. The move came after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, within weeks of each other in January. The department is also accused of indiscriminate detentions of foreigners and inhumane treatment of detainees.
As a result, public outrage over Trump’s immigration policies has been building, prompting Democratic lawmakers to respond. The president saw some of his lowest approval ratings on immigration in the aftermath of Pretti’s killing, dipping to 38 percent in mid-February.
Yet, the Trump administration has repeatedly put the blame on Democrats for the airport headaches, claiming they are putting national security at risk by refusing to fund DHS. The administration has also flogged the opposing party for taking away TSA officers’ livelihoods.
“As the Democrat-led DHS shutdown rages on, TSA officers are facing the difficult decision of either putting food on the table for their children or paying for gas to commute to work,” a DHS spokesperson told The Daily Beast on Thursday.
The president recently said Dems were “FULLY TO BLAME” for the airport chaos in recent weeks.
“The Democrat’s purposeful DHS SHUTDOWN is causing chaos at the airports,” he said in a Truth Social post this week. “These Lunatics are being totally unreasonable in their Radical Left asks. They are FULLY TO BLAME, and must pay a big price, for the good of our Country, in the Midterm Elections. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
