Armed federal immigration officers in tactical gear were deployed to terminals at some of the busiest airports in the United States on Monday, standing near security lines and checkpoints after President Donald Trump ordered the move to address severe staffing shortages at the Transportation Security Administration. ICE agents and Department of Homeland Security personnel were confirmed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, John F. Kennedy International in New York, Newark Liberty International in New Jersey, O'Hare International in Chicago, George Bush Intercontinental in Houston, Louis Armstrong International in New Orleans, Philadelphia International, and Pittsburgh International, among others, with White House border czar Tom Homan saying agents were deployed to at least 14 airports nationwide.

TSA officers have been working without pay for weeks following Congress's failure to renew DHS funding, triggering a partial government shutdown driven by a partisan stalemate over immigration policy. The national TSA callout rate reached 11.76% on Sunday, with some airports recording dramatically higher rates — New Orleans at 42.3%, Atlanta at 41.5%, and JFK at 37.4% — contributing to security lines stretching as long as three hours at some locations. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned Sunday that staffing shortages could worsen later in the week, and union officials said mass resignations may be imminent.

Homan said ICE agents, deployed at a minimum of 50 personnel per shift at each airport, would not be performing screening duties such as operating magnetometers or X-ray machines, tasks for which they are not trained. Instead, officials said the agents would assist with crowd control, monitoring lines, and checking IDs at security checkpoint entrances and exits. Trump said Monday the deployment was his idea and that its primary mission was to help move passengers through security lines.

The presence of immigration agents near TSA checkpoints has unsettled travelers and drawn criticism from airport and airline workers, who expressed concern that officers unfamiliar with the customer-service demands of airport environments could create additional disruption. Richard Gennetti of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA officers, said the union opposed the deployment, calling it inappropriate and warning it could intimidate the public. A pilot and flight attendants on a Memphis-to-Atlanta flight, overheard by NBC News, expressed similar concern, saying they hoped ICE agents would not generate more chaos given what they described as a lack of the patience required in the industry. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said his office was monitoring federal officer deployments at O'Hare.