US President Donald Trump threatened on Saturday to place Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in charge of airport security checks starting next week if Democrats do not approve funding for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), whose employees have not been paid since February due to the Democratic boycott of the president’s aggressive immigration policies.
“If the radical left Democrats do not immediately sign a deal to make our country, particularly our airports, free and secure again, I will be moving our brilliant, patriotic ICE agents to the airports,” Trump wrote on his social media account, Truth Social.
In a second social media post, the New York businessman asserted that he has already instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be present at airports starting next Monday.
The Republican’s remarks come a day after the Senate rejected, for the fifth time since February, funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has been partially shut down for five weeks and on which the TSA and immigration agencies depend.
The suspension of TSA payroll has led many workers to take leave or resign, causing extremely long lines at major U.S. airports such as Atlanta, New York’s JFK, and New Orleans.
The Senate, at the initiative of the Democratic minority, is scheduled to vote today on a motion to fund only the TSA and allow it to reopen, while keeping all other non-essential Department of Homeland Security operations suspended.
The Democrats’ refusal to fund the DHS stemmed from the January shooting deaths of two Minneapolis residents by federal agents during the massive immigration raids launched by the Trump administration in Minnesota. These raids focused particularly on the Somali community, which Trump accuses of being behind a massive embezzlement of public funds.
In his address today, the president asserted that ICE will implement “unprecedented security measures” at airports, “including the immediate arrest of all illegal immigrants who have entered our country, with a special focus on those from Somalia, who, with the approval of a corrupt governor, attorney general, and congresswoman like Ilhan Omar, have completely destroyed the once great state of Minnesota.”
Despite the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, record funding granted to ICE and other immigration agencies by the Trump administration through a 2025 budget and tax cut law allows these entities to continue operating with ample resources.
Source: msn
