US President Donald Trump has threatened to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at airports, “where they will provide security like no one has ever seen before“.
“If the radical left Democrats do not immediately sign a deal to make our country, and especially our airports, free and safe again, I will deploy our brilliant and patriotic ICE agents at the airports. They will provide security like no one has ever seen before, by immediately arresting all illegal immigrants entering our country, with a special focus on those from Somalia,” the American leader wrote in Truth Social.
He added that he “looks forward” to seeing ICE agents at American airports.
In mid-February, a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security began in the United States due to disagreements in the Senate over the agency’s budget. Some Democratic representatives have been pushing for strict restrictions on ICE. However, their negotiations with the White House have stalled, The Washington Post recalls.
The shutdown affected not the department itself, but its divisions, including the TSA (Transportation Security Administration). In the past month, 366 TSA employees have quit their jobs over unpaid wages, according to Newsweek, with many employees absent from work.
The situation is particularly dire at airports. Billionaire Elon Musk offered on March 21 to cover TSA employees’ salaries out of his own pocket until the agency’s funding is agreed upon.
In January, during an ICE raid in Minneapolis aimed at detaining and deporting illegal immigrants, agents shot and killed two people: a woman and, two weeks later, a man. After the first shooting, the Department of Homeland Security said the agent who opened fire was defending himself and others until the woman tried to run him over with her car. The Department of Homeland Security attributed the second shooting to the fact that the person shot was armed. However, The New York Times reported that the man was holding a phone, not a gun.
On March 5, Trump announced that Christie Noem, who headed the Department of Homeland Security, was leaving her post.