Democrats are demanding reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including a ban on ICE agents wearing masks during raids, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said this week, adding background to Americans dealing with travel nightmares at airports nationwide as the partial government shutdown marches on.
“Senate Democrats want to ban ICE officers from wearing masks so their left-wing street militias can dox the officers and terrorize the officers’ wives and children at their homes,” Cotton said on Wednesday, day 40 of the Senate battle over funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“That’s why TSA lines are so long,” the senator added.
While lawmakers initially suggested they were making headway in coming to an agreement, Democrats are continuing to push ICE reforms, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) signaling they would send a counterproposal with “significant” reforms that would “rein in” ICE, specifically taking repeated issue with the use of masks.
All the while, a travel nightmare unraveled in recent days as Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers remain unpaid, resulting in thousands calling out and pile-ups at airports. Travel delays prompted the Trump administration to deploy ICE agents to over a dozen airports nationwide to help with crowd control, check IDs, and offer help — in the form of handing out water bottles and holding places in line — to weary travelers.
As a result from their involvement beginning Monday, some airports — which were experiencing hours-long wait times over the weekend — have seen drastic improvements, as Breitbart News reported.
All the while, many Democrats continue to criticize the move.
“There’s absolutely no reason for him to do that,” Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX). “[Trump] has put a stop to it,” she said, adding that it is a “horrible, horrible idea that’s just going to cause more problems.”
Despite many videos across social media showing travelers thanking ICE agents for assisting TSA, the Democrat lawmaker wondered how ICE agents would be “helpful in making people feel calm,” given their supposed lack of credentials for airport duties.
“If I were an international traveler, I wouldn’t want to come to the United States to deal with a rogue agency that is undertrained,” Grijalva added.
Trump border czar Tom Homan addressed such concerns over the weekend, noting that ICE agents receive a “high level of training.”
“ICE agents are assigned at many airports across the country already. They do a lot of investigation, criminal investigations of smuggling at airports. But, you know, there’s — I mean, we’ve got TSA agents covering exits, you know, people that enter through the exits certainly, highly trained ICE law enforcement officers can cover an exit,” he added.
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