Transportation Security Administration (TSA) wait time at one Houston airport terminal reached four hours on Monday as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrive to assist TSA workers amid the ongoing partial government shutdown.
According to reports, TSA security wait times at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston reached four hours in the airport’s Terminal E, with wait times exceeding 2 hours elsewhere.
Other airports, including the San Diego International Airport, are also seeing hours-long TSA lines.
Meanwhile, travelers flying out of Atlanta have been urged to arrive to the airport four hours before their scheduled flight, attributing the extraordinarily long lines to “TSA staffing constraints.”
“Security lines have gotten so bad in New Orleans that travelers are SLEEPING IN THE AIRPORT so they don’t miss their flights,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shared on its X page alongside a video showcasing the travel chaos.
“It’s time for Democrats to end this travel chaos and reopen DHS,” it added.
Amid the extended wait times, ICE agents are arriving at several U.S. airports to assist TSA with crowd control as well as ID checks.
Over the weekend, thousands of TSA workers did not show up to work as the shutdown has now reached Day 38. On Saturday alone, roughly 3,000 workers did not show up. On Sunday, call-outs topped 3,400.
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport were among the top in terms of high percentages of TSA worker call-outs.
Trump Border Czar Tom Homan confirmed on Sunday that ICE agents would assist with the widespread travel nightmare in more than a dozen airports nationwide.
“And I’m currently working on the plan now, execution,” Homan said on Sunday. “I’m working with the director of ICE and the administrator of TSA, the acting administrator. So we’ll put together a plan today and will execute tomorrow.”
While critics have spoken against this plan, asserting that ICE agents are untrained and therefore an unsuitable match to help, Homan pointed out that ICE agents are already assigned at “many” airports across the country.
“They do a lot of investigation, criminal investigations of smuggling at airports. But, you know, there’s, I mean, we’ve got TSA agents covering exits, you know, people that enter through the exits certainly, highly trained ICE law enforcement officers can cover an exit,” he said.
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