Trump threatens to send ICE to airports amid DHS standoff
President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to send federal immigration agents to airports across the country on Monday if Democrats don’t agree to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, now approaching five weeks.
“If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country,” he wrote.
“Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia” would be targeted with an especially firm hand, the president wrote on Truth Social.
Shortly thereafter, Trump followed up to say he plans to send ICE to airports in just days.
"I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday, and have already told them to, 'GET READY.' NO MORE WAITING, NO MORE GAMES!" he wrote in a separate Truth Social post on Saturday.
It’s his latest bid to push Democrats, who have refused to greenlight DHS funding without changes to how it carries out immigration enforcement, pointing to deadly incidents as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descended en masse on major American cities. Increased callouts among TSA agents and airport staffers are expected to roil airports in the coming weeks, with major interruptions to airport procedure likely to follow.
Both sides have seemingly made progress in recent days toward ending the shutdown. The White House made several concessions on immigration enforcement policies in a proposal shared with Senate Democrats on Friday. But the ICE agent masking ban Democrats are seeking in exchange for their support on a funding package remains a bridge too far, Republicans argue.
Trump’s latest threat isn’t likely to make the prospects of a truce any more viable, especially given his focus on Minnesota, where tensions flared after federal immigration agents killed two protesters during a major surge of personnel in January.
In a post on X following Trump’s threat, Rep. Lauren Boebert said, “The airport in Minnesota is about to be a ghost town.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the Senate Appropriations Committee vice chair, mocked the plan.
"Oh yeah, I’m sure the next thing the American people want after long lines at TSA is to get wrongfully detained, beat up, and harassed by ICE," Murray wrote in a post on X. "No blank check for ICE. We need reform & accountability. In the meantime, how about you tell Republicans to just vote to pay TSA."
The president’s threat Saturday lands squarely in the middle of a confirmation fight over his pick to run DHS, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a process that has quickly become a proxy battle over the future of ICE itself.
At his hearing this week, Mullin tried to strike a more measured tone than in some of his past remarks, pledging to rein in some enforcement tactics and lower the agency’s public profile. But he repeatedly defended ICE agents amid mounting scrutiny, including backing officers involved in high-profile civilian deaths and arguing Democrats are tying the agency’s hands.
Republicans — including Mullin — have instead pushed to expand ICE’s resources and authority, framing the standoff as a fight over public safety.
The backdrop is the messy ouster of Kristi Noem, whose tenure was defined by aggressive deportation policies, costly PR campaigns and a series of controversies that ultimately led Trump to push her out after a bruising round of congressional hearings.
The enforcement-heavy approach Trump threatened Saturday sets up a preview for what Mullin will perhaps be asked to defend — and potentially formalize — as the next head of DHS.
ICE and the Transportation Security Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment from POLITICO.