ICE agents could be seen walking the terminals at the Philadelphia International Airport on Tuesday as they have descended on the transit hub in an effort to help support the TSA as an ongoing partial government shutdown has led to significant staffing shortages at the airport.
Philadelphia was one of 13 airports across the country where ICE agents were assigned as a solution to help manage lines and do crowd control as the TSA has seen staffing shortage as many of the roughly 50,000 TSA agents across the country were going on five weeks without pay.
The Dept. of Homeland Security said last weekend nearly nearly 12% of TSA officers, or more than 3,450, did not show up for work.
President Donald Trump had announced over the weekend that he’d send ICE agents to airports to help ease long lines caused by a shortage in TSA employees amid the partial government shutdown.
This week, LaShanda Palmer, a TSA officer for 24 years, told NBC10 that the pause in pay has caused her, and her fellow agents, to suffer significant financial hardships.
As noted by NBC News, ICE agents are not trained airport screeners and lack the clearance needed to work the security checkpoint.
But, the president has said that their role at airports would be to help provide crowd control and support operations.
Travelers on Tuesday morning, Kyra Maillard, of Limerick Township, told NBC10’s Katy Zachry that she was pleasantly surprised to see lines moving smoothly at the airport as ICE agents looked on.
“I’m hoping that everything goes pretty smooth,” she said. “I thought there were going to be lines, I really did.”
Overall, travelers were not seeing long lines at PHL on Tuesday morning.
And, officials have not said just how long ICE agents might be stationed at the airport as the partial government shutdown continues.
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