Democrats fight ICE airport deployment
Jonathan Fahey, former DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary, discusses Democrats’ opposition to deploying ICE agents at airports and criticizes Chicago’s sanctuary city policy after an illegal Venezuelan migrant is charged with murdering an 18-year-old.
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said that the Trump administration’s decision to deploy ICE agents to airports will create “chaos,” implying that airline passengers could be killed by ICE agents.
Jeffries shared his reservations about ICE agents patrolling airports with CNN host Dana Bash on “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“The last thing that the American people need is for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize or in some instances kill them,” Jeffries said.
“We have already seen how ICE conducts itself,” Jeffries continued. “These are untrained individuals when it comes to doing the current job they have, for the most part, let alone deploying them in close proximity in highly sensitive situations at airports across the country.”
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United State House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks during a press conference in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 20, 2025. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
His comments come shortly after Trump’s “border czar, Tom Homan, told Bash the Trump administration will deploy federal immigration agents to airports. The move follows TSA worker shortages causing long security lines. TSA agents have either quit or called out of work in response to missed paychecks due to the partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security.
On Monday, ICE agents were deployed to 14 airports, including New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia
ICE agents arrive at JFK Airport in New York City, N.Y., Monday, March 23, 2026. The agents are being brought in to assist TSA agents amid staffing shortages due to the government shutdown. (David Dee Delgado for Fox News)
Jeffries said Republican lawmakers “would rather force TSA agents to work without pay, inconvenience millions of Americans all across the country and now potentially expose them to untrained ICE agents and create chaos at airports throughout the land, rather than get ICE agents under control.”
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Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., expressed a similar sentiment in an X post, alleging that people will die because of ICE’s presence at airports.
“ICE agents at airports will only aggravate delays & lines — disrupting checks, interrogating travelers, dragging parents from children, detaining citizens, brutalizing families, shooting & even killing,” Blumenthal wrote.
ICE agents arrive at JFK airport in New York City, N.Y., Monday, March 23, 2026. The agents are being brought in to assist TSA agents amid staffing shortages due to the government shutdown. (David Dee Delgado for Fox News)
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“Brutal, lawless tactics common in communities across the country by masked, unidentified agents, violating basic rights—no way to help TSA or travelers,” Blumenthal continued.
Those comments came after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor that Trump’s plan to deploy ICE agents was “asking for trouble.”