President Donald Trump announced his intention to deploy ICE agents to airports across the US on Monday, in the context of a continuing impasse between Senate Republicans and Democrats regarding the funding of the Department of Homeland Security.
‘GET READY…’: warns Trump
“If the Democrats do not allow for Just and Proper Security at our Airports, and elsewhere throughout our Country, ICE will do the job far better than ever done before!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday, and have already told them to, ‘GET READY,’” he stated in a subsequent post.
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The action was taken mere hours after Trump initially threatened to deploy ICE agents to airports. “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,” he said.
Trump stated that the responsibilities of ICE agents at airports would encompass the “the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country.”
These comments arise as Senate Republicans on Saturday blocked a Democratic effort to advance a stand-alone bill intended to finance the TSA, culminating in a 41-49 vote. This occurred just one day after Senate Democrats dismissed Republicans’ efforts to pass a bill that would completely fund the DHS, which has been partially shut down since mid-February.
Patty Murray targets Republicans
In the wake of the atypical Saturday vote, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a key negotiator for Democrats in the talks aimed at resolving the partial shutdown, charged Republicans with tying TSA funding to ICE funding.
“Today, Senate Republicans voted against paying TSA agents because they insist on tying TSA funding to their push to give even more money to ICE — without basic reforms. That is not how this should work — and it is just plain wrong that Republicans are preventing TSA agents from getting paid while airport lines grow longer across the country,” Murray stated.
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There have been a lot of callouts and longer security queues at airports across the country as a result of the shutdown, which has prevented Transportation Security Administration agents who conduct security screenings at American airports from getting paid.
Another Department of Homeland Security agency, ICE, is untouched by the present shutdown since it received an additional $75 billion in funding from the president’s significant legislative package, known as the “big, beautiful bill,” which was passed and signed into law last year.
In February, Democrats pledged to halt operations at the Department of Homeland Security until Republicans consented to implement new regulations on ICE agents, including mandates for them to display identification and prohibitions against wearing face coverings.
