Security lines stretched for hours on Monday at US airports where unpaid Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) screening agents refused to report for duty and ICE agents deployed by Donald Trump were reportedly seen in a dozen cities.
The president claimed over the weekend that immigration agents could help manage long lines, but in Atlanta, little immediate impact of their presence could be observed. Meanwhile, airport staff were getting creative trying to herd thousands of discontent passengers.
Lines at Hartsfield Jackson international airport had spilled out from the screening area, winding inside and out of the staging area, the baggage claim and at 9am were in a loop on the curb. People hoping to make mid-morning flights had been standing in line since before sunrise.
Screening agents from the TSA have gone unpaid while the Department of Homeland Security remains partially shut down. The budget impasse in Washington DC stems from demands by Democratic lawmakers to hold immigration enforcement agents to account after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and practices of warrantless detention and militarized raids that have raised alarms.
TSA agents missed their second paycheck on Friday. Many are not showing up for work and hundreds have reportedly quit.
Trump deployed ICE agents to assist with passenger screening in 11 cities with busy airports on Monday, according to CNN, including Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Phoenix, Cleveland, Ft Myers, New Orleans, and the New York City area’s three big airports, JFK, Newark and LaGuardia, where a plane crashed into a truck this morning, killing two pilots.
The fatal crash has caused the airport to shut down and effects to ripple throughout the system.
“It’s total chaos,” said Tom Healey of Alpharetta, Georgia, trying to make a flight to Louisville from Atlanta. He had been in line for three hours by 8am; his flight was scheduled for around 9. “Look at what happened at LaGuardia,” he said. “My wife’s got to fly out of that place. She was supposed to fly out of LaGuardia today.”
Karan Ghura had been in line since 4am. At 9.30, he had already missed his flight to Phoenix and was standing in line – again – to make a different flight home to the Bay Area.
“The funny part is, when I put my flight details in, Clear tells you what time you should come. They told me to leave at 4. There’s no way I can come and leavethe place I was staying at 4 and catch my 6 with this kind of traffic.”
Ghura and several other passengers said the Clear service allowing passengers to bypass security lines was down. Clear’s media relations staff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, dozens of ICE agents could be seen unmasked in Atlanta’s terminals. Trump claimed on Monday morning that agents are now able to “arrest illegals as they come into the country. That’s very fertile territory.” But, Trump, added, they were really there to help.
The Atlanta mayor, Andre Dickens, said: “According to federal officials, these personnel will be assigned to support operational needs directed by the Transportation Security Administration including line management and crowd control within the domestic terminals. Federal officials have indicated that this deployment is not intended to conduct immigration enforcement activities.”
Tamika West, who was trying to fly home to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Monday, said she was buying a ticket for a new flight, unable to get through the lines quickly because her Clear membership was not going to help. A half-dozen ICE agents were standing behind her in a cluster, watching the crowds.
“So, how do they help?” she asked. “How are they helping when the line is wrapping around every bag carrier, baggage claim and all that. How are they helping? They’re not helping. They’re making it worse.”
Amid the anxiety about ICE agents’ presence at the airports, video went viral of a struggle between a woman and two federal immigration agents at San Francisco international airport on Sunday. But local officials on Monday said the encounter did not stem from an arrest at the airport – and that the agents involved had been transporting the woman as well as a child on an outbound flight when the incident happened, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
“We believe this is an isolated incident and have no reason to suspect broader enforcement action at” the airport, Doug Yakel, a facility spokesperson said in a statement reported by the Chronicle.
