Photos of the agents showed them at New York’s John F Kennedy airport and Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta, Georgia, among others. <\/p>\n
But they were not wearing masks or face coverings as they have done elsewhere.<\/p>\n
“I’m a big believer that they should be able to wear masks when they go and hunt down, you know – murderers, criminals, and others,” President Donald Trump said to a gaggle of reporters on Monday. <\/p>\n
“But for purposes of the airport, I’ve request that they take off the mask,” he said. “I didn’t think it was an appropriate look for an airport.” <\/p>\n
At Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, 42.3% of TSA staff called to say they would be absent on Sunday, and at Hartsfield-Jackson, 41.5% of staff called out, according to figures obtained by the BBC’s US partner CBS.<\/p>\n
More than one-third of staff called out sick at three other airports the same day, including George Bush Intercontinental Airport, in Houston, Texas, and Baltimore\/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.<\/p>\n
Airline passengers at some airports on Monday were told to arrive at least three or four hours early to allow time for expected delays. <\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said wait times have become so long that travellers are “sleeping in the airport” to avoid missing flights.<\/p>\n
In a letter sent to Congress on Monday, over 100 airport leaders signed a statement saying they were “deeply concerned about the growing operational disruptions”. <\/p>\n
“The impacts of the shutdown are significant, growing, and potentially long-lasting,” the letter sent by Airports Council International said. “We urge you to take action to immediately end the shutdown.” <\/p>\n
Acting Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl said ICE agents would be at airports to “help support” staff in “non-specialised security functions”, freeing TSA agents to focus more on “aviation security specifically”. <\/p>\n
“We are hoping they can be a force multiplier,” Stahl said, in an interview with Fox News. <\/p>\n
Homan, meanwhile, said over the weekend that ICE agents would support crowd control and would not be directly involved in screening passengers. <\/p>\n
The deployment of ICE agents to American airports is happening amid a decline in public support for the agency over its immigration enforcement activities.<\/p>\n
Trump has said the agents could make arrests. <\/p>\n
“They’re able to now arrest illegals as they come into the country. That’s very fertile territory,” he told reporters. “But that’s not why they’re there. They’re really there to help.”<\/p>\n
But Derrick Johnson, the head of civil rights organisation NAACP, criticised the move.<\/p>\n
“They are inadequately trained, armed, and instructed to profile people based on race and accent,” he said in a statement to the BBC.<\/p>\n
“What could possibly go wrong? We’ve seen this movie before.” <\/p>\n
Democrats in Congress have refused to fund DHS without new curbs on immigration agents, who sparked public outrage after shooting dead two US citizens in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
There is little sign that the funding standoff is close to being resolved. Republicans have rejected Democratic \u200bproposals to fund TSA while negotiations over ICE reforms continue. <\/p>\n
Trump instructed Republicans on Sunday not to agree to a deal that would have funded all of DHS except ICE, as he seeks to rally support behind his voter ID bill.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, DHS employees, including TSA and other agencies, will continue to go without pay.<\/p>\n
On Friday, TSA agents will miss their second paycheck, according to federal pay schedules. That is also the last day Congress is scheduled to be in session before a two-week recess begins. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photos of the agents showed them at New York’s John F Kennedy airport and Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-845827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116280876396822946","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}