ICE agents have been deployed to airports. What’s their role? : NPR

In response to staffing challenges resulting from the partial government shutdown, President Trump has dispatched Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to major airports across the United States.

After the Department of Homeland Security’s funding expired in mid-February, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees have been working without pay. Since then, over 480 agents have resigned, according to TSA’s deputy administrator, Ha Nguyen McNeill, and thousands have been absent from work daily. ICE, however, remains unaffected due to a separate $75 billion allocation by Congress last summer.

Here’s an overview of the powers and potential impact of ICE agents at airports, as discussed by experts.

What are ICE agents authorized to do?

Established in 2003 as part of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE was granted broad authority by Congress to question, search, and arrest undocumented immigrants, or those suspected to be, without a warrant.

Initially, immigration enforcement focused primarily on undocumented immigrants who had already been arrested for crimes within the United States, according to Theresa Brown, a non-resident immigration law and policy fellow at Cornell Law School.

ICE agents have the power to issue arrest warrants, stop and question individuals they suspect of being undocumented, detain and prosecute those living illegally in the U.S., and deport them, Brown explained. Additionally, as federal law enforcement officers, they can arrest anyone under existing criminal statutes if they witness a crime.

Brown noted, “So they have pretty broad authorities both under immigration law and just sort of as federal law enforcement officers.”

ICE agents’ powers expanded under Trump administration

“Two significant developments have occurred and accelerated during the second Trump administration,” said Hiroshi Motomura, co-director of UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy, in an email to NPR.

The first change involves how ICE conducts its operations, facing criticism for confrontational tactics, such as using masked, plainclothes officers to arrest and detain individuals suspected of being in the country illegally. The second change is ICE’s “separately and extravagantly funded” status, insulating it from the effects of the partial government shutdown, Motomura observed. He warned that these sweeping changes could have damaging consequences.

Motomura wrote, “The real problem and real danger is that ICE is being transformed into a police force that operates under more aggressive rules that are traditionally lawful and accepted only at the border (not inside the USA) and operates under a separate (very ample) budget.”

So what does this all mean for ICE presence at airports?

When NPR asked the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday about ICE’s operational rules, Lauren Bis, an acting assistant secretary, did not address the question directly. Instead, she stated that ICE agents were assisting the TSA by “guarding entrances and exits, assisting with logistics, doing crowd control, and verifying identification using TSA equipment and standard operating procedures.”

“The more support we have available, the more efficiently TSA can focus on their highly specialized screening roles to efficiently get airport security lines moving faster,” Bis said.

White House border czar Tom Homan is leading the new program, raising questions about whether the primary objective is to aid TSA or to continue Trump’s aggressive stance against suspected undocumented immigrants.

“They’re supposed to help facilitate the process of getting people through TSA. They can’t do the work of TSA, but they’re supposed to facilitate by taking over some of the activities related to security,” said Paul Ong, director of UCLA’s Center for Neighborhood Knowledge. “But they still have the other mandate, that is, 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,” he added.

In comments made Monday on Fox News’ Hannity, Homan emphasized that targeting criminal activity is a key aspect of ICE’s airport presence.

“We’re doing a security function at the airports. We’re going to arrest criminals going through the airport. We’re going to arrest criminals going through this airport. We’re going to look for human trafficking, sex trafficking, money smuggling,” Homan said.

He also mentioned that wait times had decreased, although as of Wednesday, travelers were still experiencing the longest TSA wait times in history.