Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed an order to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to airports nationwide including Reagan National Airport, and Dulles International Airport in an effort to reduce the excessive waits and lines, especially in security and immigration.
The deployment of the agents is a direct result of staffing shortages at airports caused by the funding cuts due to the partial government shutdown. Because of these cuts, hundreds of workers at airports were left to work without pay eventually convincing them to quit, causing excessive shortages in staffing.
This resulted in airport lines being hours long, causing severe delays or cancellations of people’s trips. In turn it disrupted an airports’ flow: what was designed to be quick systems of security and immigration.
“ICE agents have been deployed in order to assist/control crowds and direct passengers in the correct direction,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
Simultaneously, the deployment of ICE agents is also meant to fulfill one of Trump’s many promises as president: deporting illegal immigrants by making targeted arrests of individuals who may already be in their system.
Although the expectation might be that ICE agents would be able to decrease wait times and the overall travel chaos, they are not qualified to conduct specialized security screening, which has possibly even slowed down systems even more.
With airports already being crowded and spring break occurring this week, students who expect to travel express issues relating to the extensive delays that ICE agents can bring with them.
“As a frequent traveler, an airport already has so many checkpoints, or safety procedures in general,” sophomore Henry Arnholt said. “Adding agents will do nothing but create an uncomfortable setting for passengers in the airport.”
Especially at this time of year, the presence of ICE has the potential to cause severe disruption in travel plans.
“I am traveling for spring break; however, I am not at all looking forward to the excessive wait times and chaos, because I just want to get to the destination and not go through everything else going on,” junior Charlotte Spencer said. “Although safety is important, ICE does not have enough experience nor authority to assist with TSA regulations.”
