President Trump threatened on Saturday to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports as soon as Monday if Democrats did not “immediately” agree to a plan to 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,” Mr. Trump wrote, “I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before.”
In a follow-up post hours later, Mr. Trump said that he had in fact decided to go ahead with the move, and that he had told the agency to “GET READY.”
“I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday,” he wrote.
Mr. Trump posted the threat, then the timing of the deployment, in an apparent attempt to break an impasse between congressional Democrats and the White House over immigration enforcement, a stalemate that caused a partial government shutdown last month.
Tom Homan, the White House border czar, went to Capitol Hill on Friday night to discuss a path forward with a bipartisan group of senators, the second such session this week. The group is expected to meet again on Saturday, lawmakers said.
With the shutdown now in its fifth week, Congress remains deadlocked on a bill to fund the department, which includes the Transportation Security Administration. Airport security personnel have been working without pay.
Mr. Trump’s threat comes as airports across the country are experiencing longer wait times and delays — at the height of the spring break travel season — and as agents have called out en masse or quit. Officials have warned that some small airports may have to close if staffing levels continue to drop.
Mr. Trump wrote that the ICE agents staffing airports would also conduct aggressive immigration operations, in what would be an escalation of immigration enforcement tactics for an agency already under scrutiny for what critics in both parties say is a heavy-handed approach.
The president said that their duties would also include “the immediate arrest of all illegal immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia,” continuing his attack on a population he has disparaged in defense of his contentious immigration operation in Minnesota. Two U.S. citizens protesting the operations were killed by federal agents.
Though Mr. Trump appeared to be giving Democrats an ultimatum, he signaled that his mind was already made up, something he confirmed in the social media post Saturday afternoon confirming that he was planning to deploy ICE agents on Monday.
Democrats were quick to criticize the idea.
“Surely, the next thing people want after waiting hours in long TSA lines is to get wrongfully detained by ICE,” Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, said in a statement. “Here’s an idea: Instead of sidelining TSA agents and sending ICE to harass travelers, the president should tell Republicans to stop blocking our bill to pay TSA.”
Democrats have continued to press for new restrictions on federal immigration agents. Their demands include requiring officers to show visible identification, blocking them from wearing masks, requiring them to obtain judicial warrants and adopting stricter use-of-force policies.
The White House signaled openness to some reforms earlier this week, but Democrats had said they were waiting to see a legislative proposal.
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said that the White House had added to its proposal, and that Democrats needed to send a formal response.
Ms. Collins said that she hoped discussions would continue over the weekend, with lawmakers in Washington for rare Saturday and Sunday votes.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said on Saturday that lawmakers were “having productive conversations,” but he called it an “an ongoing process.”
