Name: Homan: ‘We’ll see’ if ICE leaves airports once TSA gets paid
Uploaded: 2026-03-29T23:02:47.000Z
Duration: 9 min 4 s
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Joining us now to discuss White House borders are Tom Homan, who just visited the Houston airport to monitor the very, very long security lines there.

Homan has also been involved in the talks on Capitol Hill to end the shutdown.

President Trump now says that there is, in fact, a way to pay TSA workers, possibly as soon as tomorrow.

Can TSA agents expect a paycheck tomorrow,

and when can Americans expect the long wait times to die down?

Well, as soon as Congress opens up the government and funds the Department of Homeland Security, that's what needs to happen.

But, yeah, I talked to Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen yesterday.

There is a plan to get these TSA agents pay, hopefully by tomorrow, Tuesday.

So, yeah, it's good news because these TSA officers are struggling.

They can't feed their families or pay their rent.

Your heart goes out to them because they're sitting there right now working very hard and not being paid while members of Congress now are on vacation getting paid.

If the administration had the power to move funds around to pay TSA agents this whole time, why did it take 41 days to do it?

Well, look, paying TSA agents doesn't pay the rest of the Department of Homeland Security.

You got the Coast Guard, you got CISA, you got the Men and Women's Secret Service.

You got a lot of people working at the Department of Homeland Security that isn't getting paid.

And even though you know and then we got the mission support under TSA I mean, under ICE, right?

ICE officers excuse me, they'll be getting paid.

But how about the mission support people, the people that keep the lights on it and do all the things that they have to do so ICE agents go out there and do their job?

So, no, they just need to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

After all, we're talking about the Department of Homeland Security in a time we have a heightened threat posture right now in this country because of what's going on in the world.

This should be the last thing they're fighting over funding for.

But if President Trump had the power to pay TSA agents this whole time, why only start doing it now?

Look, I don't understand look, I'm a cop.

I don't understand the whole appropriations language, appropriations law.

I just I'm just glad that President Trump is able to pay the TSA agents.

But, again, there's a lot more, many more, thousands of more, tens of thousands of more DHS employees who are not being paid that need to be paid.

Once TSA agents start getting paid, will ICE agents leave the airports?

It depends how many TSA agents come back to work, how many TSA agents have actually quit and have no plan coming back to work.

I'm working very closely with the TSA administrator and the ICE director to decide what airport needs what.

But, you know, God bless the Men and Women of ICE.

They're keeping the security airport at a high level, again, because of the heightened threat that we're in right now.

Thank God the TSA I mean, the ICE agents are there protecting the exit lanes, doing identification checks, plugging the security holes.

We got to keep the American people going through those lines.

And ICE is helping shorten those lines and adding security to each and every airport around the country.

So it's been a week since President Trump sent those ICE agents into airports to help with security.

I'm not blaming them on ICE, but the lines are still bad.

The head of the union overseeing TSA, Everett Kelly, he told The New York Times, quote, "The administration sent ICE agents to airports as replacement workers.

That's like giving a person dying of pneumonia a teaspoon of cough syrup.

and it's not going to work." But specifically, you mentioned this just a second ago.

But if you could go into more detail, what have ICE agents at airports been doing?

Well, look, the wait lines have decreased.

We got additional agents going to Baltimore yesterday to bring those lines down.

And I can understand the TSA union's position.

They want to be paid, and they're frustrated.

But, however, the facts are, every place we sent ICE officers, the lines have decreased,

Look, they're checking identification before you go to screening.

We're not going to have an ICE officer looking at X-ray images deciding what bags need to be secondary.

But we can check IDs before they get to that machine.

We can cover exits to make sure that people don't enter through the exits.

That takes that TSA agent off that security line and put him on the X-ray machine.

So we're doing the job TSA is asking us to do so their officers can get back to main screening.

For the first time since the shutdown began, just a few days ago, Democrats and Republicans came together.

They passed this compromise bill in the Senate.

Republican Leader John Thune said it was a good bill because ICE and CBP are already funded because of the One Big Beautiful bill passed last year.

He said the Democrats got zero restrictions that would prevent ICE and CBP agents from doing their job safely.

And Thune also said ICE and CBP are going to end up getting even more funding through budget reconciliation.

So why would President Trump oppose this deal that John Thune, the Senate majority leader, says is a good deal?

President Trump wants the entire Department of Homeland Security funded.

And, look, I've been on Capitol Hill talking to both sides.

And bottom lines, they want changes in ICE tactics.

Look, the same laws that ICE follows today, the same laws about immigration enforcement, have been in place during Clinton, Obama, and

And the things we're talking about, they want to prevent ICE from doing their job.

They can say they don't want to abolish ICE.

They want to change operations so we arrest less people.

And, look, the conversation is going good.

We'll pass the budget, and there's $120 million to buy body cameras.

They want to talk about sensitive location and enforcement of sensitive locations.

But they can't point to one instance, not one, where we've arrested anybody in a church or anybody inside of a hospital.

We don't have a sensitive location policy,

but we're already practicing sensitive location, that we don't do the operations there unless there is significant national security threat or a significant national security threat.

But they can't point to a single instance we've arrested an alien inside of a church or a hospital.