President Donald Trump announced he would deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to conduct security screenings at airports if Congress does not fund the Department of Homeland Security.
“If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump announced the arrest of illegal immigrants would especially target Somalis, who have been the target of much of Trump’s ire following the Somalian mass fraud scandal in Minnesota.
He said the immigration enforcement would include a “heavy emphasis on those from Somalia, who have totally destroyed, with the approval of a corrupt Governor, Attorney General, and Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, the once Great State of Minnesota.”
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Trump initially announced he would be terminating Temporary Protected Status for all Somalis residing in Minnesota in November, but activist groups and Somali nationals have challenged the move in court.
“I look forward to seeing ICE in action at our Airports,” Trump said.
Both the Transportation Security Administration and ICE are under the jurisdiction of DHS, which has been shut down since its funding lapsed in February. TSA workers have missed their paychecks, causing some to call out of work as security lines pile up in airports.
Trump did not immediately detail how the move would be implemented.
The threat comes after the Senate rejected another full DHS funding bill on Friday and after border czar Tom Homan met with lawmakers again to try to secure a deal on Friday night. The Senate voted down the funding bill by a vote of 47 to 37, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) again being the only Democrat to vote yes.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced on Saturday that he would bring a bill to the floor to fund TSA by itself, continuing Democrats’ hard-line stance on their demands for immigration reform before funding ICE.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke on the current morale of TSA workers in a Fox News interview on Saturday. He warned that many agents could seek different careers if the shutdown persists.
“They’ve already missed one full paycheck. Next Friday, they will miss their second full paycheck. They’re paying rent and trying to put food on the table — they can’t actually make ends meet during this time,” Duffy said.
THUNE SAYS NO SENATE BREAK WITHOUT DHS FUNDING: ‘IF THAT’S WHAT IT TAKES’
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has warned that the Senate will skip its April recess if Congress does not fund DHS beforehand.
“I just think we’ve got to fund the government. We can’t have a break like that, and continually have TSA not being paid and other government employees not being paid,” Thune told the Washington Examiner in an exclusive interview.
