It was business as usual at Pittsburgh International Airport throughout Monday morning, with security lines under 10 minutes and passengers breezing through for midday flights.
By Tuesday, personnel in heavy gear clearly marked as ICE or Homeland Security Investigations were moving through the airport terminal.
The airport is part of President Trump’s plan to deploy immigration agents to alleviate Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staffing shortages that have caused hourslong lines at other airports.
ICE agents were seen at busy airports including in Atlanta and at Chicago’s O’Hare airport Monday morning. The Associated Press reported that at the various airports ICE agents were generally standing near security lines but weren’t screening passengers.
ICE at PIT: What we know, what we don’t
- Pittsburgh International was named as one of 14 airports slated for ICE backup for TSA workers.
- President Donald Trump said ICE agents could enforce immigration laws while at airports, but should not be masked while working transportation security.
- An ICE spokesperson did not directly respond to Public Source questions about the agency’s proposed role and its agents’ relevant training.
Kimberly Kraynak-Lambert, the spokesperson for the union that represents TSA workers in Pittsburgh, said she received confirmation from her members that ICE agents were on site Monday morning. She said the union strongly disagrees with the deployment.
“They are untrained and their job is not to be at the airport. Our TSA officers are the ones that are trained and certified,” Kraynak-Lambert said. “ … [TSA officers] need to be paid. They don’t need ICE, they need to be paid.”
A partial government shutdown, stemming from Democrats’ refusal to fund the Department of Homeland Security without reforms to ICE, has caused TSA officers to go unpaid for more than a month. ICE agents are still being paid due to prior allocations.
The president announced the plan to bring ICE into airports Sunday, and his administration released few details about what tasks they would perform. Trump said Monday that he approved of agents performing immigration enforcement while on airport duty, but also that they should refrain from wearing masks while at airports.
Acting Assistant DHS Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement to Public Source that Trump ordered the deployment “to help American travelers who are facing hours-long lines at airports across the country,” and blamed the situation on congressional Democrats.
Allegheny County Airport Authority (ACAA) spokesperson Bob Kerlik said ICE was training at the terminal Monday.
“Our leadership team remains in close contact with our federal partners at TSA and others as well as local law enforcement with Allegheny County Police,” Kerlik said in a statement. “… How federal agencies operate is not something that any airport, including ACAA, controls.”
County Executive Sara Innamorato issued a statement saying the county doesn’t “need ICE at the airport where TSA lines have remained short and manageable. Sending ICE into our public spaces and communities is never about safety and security threats and has led to racial profiling and harassment of our neighbors.” She suggested that ICE instead investigate the March 2 death of Charleroi resident Daphy Michel, a Haitian who was in the agency’s custody days earlier.
A woman passing through security mid-morning Monday, who did not want to share her name out of fear of retaliation, said she had not heard of the plan to bring ICE into the airport, but that she thought it could create more problems than it would solve.
“I think it could be a risk, the TSA people that used to work here have training and experience, and I don’t know if ICE have the same sensitivity to catch things,” said the woman, who said she is from Mexico and lives in Pittsburgh.
Another passenger, who disclosed only her first name of Sarah, said she thinks “it’s awful” that ICE will work security in airports. “It doesn’t make me happy, it doesn’t make me feel safe,” she said.
Sarah, who was heading back to her home in Utah Monday, wore a “resist ICE” pin on her backpack, and said she placed the pin before she knew ICE would assist at airports.
Frontline Dignity Executive Director Jaime Martinez, a prominent advocate for the region’s immigrant community, said Pittsburgh’s airport is supposed to be a welcoming reflection of the city.
“Deploying ICE for political gamesmanship, while the government refuses to pay TSA workers, undermines that vision by injecting fear and confusion where there should be connection, and turning a symbol of regional pride into a place of uncertainty for too many families,” he said.
Pittsburgh is one of the least busy airports to receive ICE agents Monday, according to a list published by CNN. The group of 13 airports includes Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Houston.
Editor’s note (3/25): This story was updated to reflect the visible presence of ICE agents starting Tuesday.
Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.
The Associated Press contributed.
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