An NPR report examines the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to major U.S. airports during a partial government shutdown that left the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) understaffed. With hundreds of TSA workers resigning or calling out after working without pay, federal officials reassigned ICE agents to help maintain airport operations.

While ICE agents are assisting with tasks such as crowd control, monitoring entrances, and verifying identification, they are not trained to conduct core TSA screening procedures. Their presence has raised broader questions about the agency’s role in domestic travel spaces.

Experts note that ICE’s core mission remains immigration enforcement. Paul Ong, research professor and director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, explained, “ICE is an agency that’s created for enforcement, within the U.S., and so that will still be with them. While they’re there, they will carry out what they believe is their charge of identifying potential immigrants who are not in this country legally.”