Name: Former TSA administrator says having ICE at airport won't 'speed things up'
Uploaded: 2026-03-23T23:03:58.000Z
Duration: 8 min 39 s
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ICE agents are now assisting with security at more than a dozen major U.S. airports.

A senior ICE official telling NBC News that at least 50 ICE personnel will work each shift at those airports, not to help with security screening,

but to assist in other ways, like crowd control.

President Trump today taking credit for the ICE deployments and also warning that the National Guard could be called to assist next.

And I want to thank ICE because they stepped in so, so strongly.

And if that's not enough, I'll bring in the National Guard.

We're not going to have the Democrats destroy our country.

It comes as travelers are facing hours-long security lines at multiple airports, with the DHS shut down now in its sixth week.

Nationwide, more than 11 percent of TSA officers who had already missed one full paycheck called out yesterday.

That, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Five airports had call-out rates of more than 35 percent.

NBC News correspondent Jesse Kirsch joins me now from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport,

and also with me is former TSA administrator John Pistol.

I know that you've been dealing with ebbs and flows of security lines there in Atlanta.

Yeah, mostly flow throughout the day, Ryan.

But this is really the first lull that we have seen since the early morning.

Notably, however, you see that TV screen right there.

When I'm told by our team based here in Atlanta, you would typically on that screen see your TSA wait time.

So we've noticed they have not been advertising that today.

And I think that just speaks to how unpredictable and possibly how pessimistic those numbers might be.

But right now, at this main checkpoint, it's pretty quiet.

That didn't really develop until the last hour or so.

Here's some of what we've heard from travelers.

You got here at 8:00 for a 1:00 p.m. flight?

Yes, which is insane, because normally I would get here about 11: 30 for it and get through, grab lunch,

I don't know how much you've been paying attention to what is causing all the baggage, but

just the fact that this is where we're at at America's airports.

And it makes me worried about my 8:00 a.m. flight on Friday when I have to come back.

It was the first flight today or earlier on?

So this is your second flight you've booked for today?

And that young woman told me that she was getting here before 9:00, before 10:00 a.m.

So needless to say, Ryan, people's travel plans and entire schedule for the day in some cases being completely reworked by what has been unfolding at airports like what we've seen here in Atlanta.

And even though things are not that busy now, you still need to get there early because you just don't know what you could encounter when you get to the airport.

And tell me, what are ICE agents actually doing to help with those long lines?

They're not actually at the screening locations helping you put your suitcase through the metal detectors, right?

Well, and to be clear, we have not gone through security ourselves today.

So we don't know exactly what they're doing at every stage of the process.

But what I can tell you is what we've been able to see is mostly the agents from ICE walking around the terminal.

We actually, at one point, saw ICE helping a woman get out of a car into a wheelchair and go into the terminal from the curb area.

What we know from a senior ICE official is that the agents can help with things like checking IDs, with crowd control.

But they are not trained on things like running the X-ray machines.

So bottom line, there's only so much they could help with.

And we spoke with the CEO of the airport here earlier.

He said he doesn't think that they've been here long enough to know if they've made a discernible impact yet.

But also, he reiterated as well, there are certain things that would take months to train other people on that only TSA can do.

As a former TSA administrator, you understand better than any what a complicating factor this is.

From your vantage point, listening to what you heard from Jesse, is there any discernible way that ICE agents could help try and make the process a little easier at the nation's airports?

Well, I think there's a couple of things that could be done.

One is, for example, in the 435 or so airports where TSA does the screening of things, many of those airports have exit lanes for when you go out of secure area, when you're leaving the airport, that are staffed by TSOs, Transportation Security Officers.

So if ICE agents were assigned there as a supplement, they could relieve the TSOs from those responsibilities to get to the checkpoint to try to offset in a minimal way the high call-out rates that you showed earlier.

So that's one thing with the queue management, the line management.

Perhaps the one thing I think they could actually do be a visible deterrent for putative terrorists who might want to think that they can take advantage of this situation and walk into any terminal in the country, there in Atlanta or wherever,

and to take out some automatic weapons and just start firing at the lines.

So it's a security risk because it's a soft target.

So I think the ICE officers could the agents could be helpful in that regard too as a visible deterrent.

So President Trump has suggested perhaps maybe the National Guard is the next step here.

Would their skill set be any different than that of the ICE agents?

So again, they're not of any help in terms of the actual checkpoint operations.

They don't know anything about computer tomography or the X-ray machines, how to do trace explosive detection, how to resolve alarms, any of those things.

And that's just the normal circumstances.

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Former TSA administrator says having ICE at airport won't 'speed things up'

perspective

process

insane

consistently