President Donald Trump threatened Saturday to send federal immigration agents to airports across the country on Monday if Democrats do not agree to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, which is now approaching five weeks.
He wrote, “If the radical left Democrats do not immediately sign a deal to make our country, especially our airports, free and safe again, I will lead our talented and patriotic ICE agents into the airports where they will enforce security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all illegal immigrants coming into our country.”
“Illegal immigrants who have come to our country, with a heavy emphasis on people from Somalia”, will be targeted particularly harshly. The President wrote on Truth Social.
Shortly thereafter, Trump said he planned to send ICE to airports within days.
“I’m looking forward to taking him to ICE on Monday, and I’ve already told them, ‘Get ready.’ No more waiting, no more games!” He wrote in a separate Truth Social post on Saturday.
It is his latest attempt to push back on Democrats, who have refused to greenlight DHS funding without changes to the way immigration enforcement is enforced, pointing to a spate of fatalities due to the mass descent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in major US cities. The escalating callouts between TSA agents and airport employees are expected to cause chaos at airports in the coming weeks, with the potential to cause major disruptions in airport processing.
Both sides have made progress toward ending the shutdown in recent days. The White House made several concessions on immigration enforcement policies in a proposal shared with Senate Democrats on Friday. But Republicans’ argument that ICE agents are hiding the ban while Democrats are demanding a bridge in exchange for their support on a funding package goes too far.
Trump’s latest threat is unlikely to make the prospects of a ceasefire any more viable, especially given his focus on Minnesota, where tensions rose after two protesters were killed by federal immigration agents during a major surge of personnel in January.
In a post on x After Trump’s threat, Representative Lauren Boebert said, “The airport is going to be a ghost town in Minnesota.”
Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, ridiculed the plan.
“Oh yes, I’m sure the next thing the American people want after the long lines at TSA is to be wrongfully detained, beaten and harassed by ICE,” Murray said. Wrote in a post on X. “No blank check for ICE. We need reform and accountability. In the meantime, you tell Republicans to vote to defund the TSA.”
The president’s threat Saturday comes in the midst of a battle to confirm his pick to run DHS, Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a process that has quickly become a proxy fight over the future of ICE.
At his hearing this week, Mullin tried to strike a more measured tone than some of his previous remarks, promising to rein in some enforcement tactics and lower the agency’s public profile. But he has repeatedly defended ICE agents amid growing scrutiny, including supporting officers involved in high-profile civilian deaths and arguing that Democrats were tying the agency’s hands.
Republicans — including Mullin — have instead pushed for expanding ICE’s resources and authority, and have framed 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, expensive PR campaigns and a series of controversies that ultimately led Trump to oust her after a tough round of congressional hearings.
The enforcement-heavy approach that Trump threatened on Saturday sets a preview of what Mullin will probably be asked to defend and potentially formalize as the next head of DHS.
ICE and the Transportation Security Administration did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s requests for comment.
