Washington, March 22 – US President Donald Trump threatened to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to provide security at airports amid an ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has lasted for more than a month and has left regular security personnel unpaid.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that if Democrats did not "immediately sign an agreement," "I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before."
The US Senate failed to advance a House-passed bill to fund the DHS on Friday due to bipartisan disagreement over immigration enforcement, according to Xinhua news agency.
Approximately 50,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers have been working without pay since February 14, when the US Congress let funding for the DHS, which oversees the TSA, expire due to a disagreement on immigration enforcement. Major US airports are experiencing long lines at security checkpoints, with wait times exceeding three hours in some cases. Airports in Houston, Atlanta, and New Orleans are among the hardest hit.
Negotiations between the two parties on immigration enforcement have shown little progress over the last five weeks. Republicans have pushed to fund DHS, while Democrats have sought standalone funding for agencies like the TSA that would exclude immigration operations.
Earlier in March, a Democratic lawmaker introduced a bill in the US House of Representatives seeking to overturn President Trump's proclamation that imposed strict wage requirements and steep fees on employers hiring H-1B visa workers.
Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman announced the measure, titled the Welcoming International Success Act, aimed at reversing the September 2025 proclamation that mandated rigid wage levels and imposed a $100,000 fee on employers sponsoring H-1B workers.