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President Trump planned to defy NYC's socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani by sending around 500 ICE agents to LaGuardia and John F Kennedy airports, reports said.
The Department of Homeland Security will continue its surge of ICE agents to airports amid chaos at TSA lines from a partial government shutdown, NewsNation reported.
'TSA is extremely grateful to the patriotic men and women of ICE who have deployed to airports that are facing a high number of callouts because of the Democrats' shutdown,' Acting DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said.
'After receiving standard TSA training curriculum, ICE officers are guarding entrances and exits, assisting with logistics, doing crowd control, and verifying identification using TSA equipment and standard operating procedures.'
Bis noted that the TSA agent callout rate was 11.14 percent on Tuesday, with JFK having one of the highest callout rates in the country at 36.8 percent.
While only near half that (17.1 percent) have called out at LaGuardia, it faces extreme delays in part due to the still ongoing investigation into the fatal collision between an Air Canada jet and a firetruck on the runway days ago.
Mamdani has been highly critical of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the past, calling for the agency to be abolished and claiming they have 'terrorized' US citizens.
'The more support we have available, the more efficiently TSA can focus on their highly specialized screening roles to efficiently get airport security lines moving faster,' Bis added.
The Department of Homeland Security will continue its surge of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents to airports amid chaos at TSA from a partial government shutdown
Around 500 ICE agents will be sent to New York's LaGuardia and John F Kennedy airports (pictured) within the next 24 hours
The new deployments come at a time when conditions at airports are becoming potentially dangerous.
Earlier Tuesday, TSA acting administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told the House Homeland Security Committee that the agency is now 'being forced to consolidate' security lanes, and 'may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers.'
'It is a fluid, challenging and unpredictable situation. We understand this is frustrating and disruptive,' McNeil told Congress. 'This is unacceptable.'
Travelers have been urged to get to airports more than two hours early because security lines are so slow, as wait times have lasted an average of 270 minutes in some of America's busiest hubs.
Airports nationwide are experiencing surging callout rates higher than 40 percent among TSA employees, McNeil said.
Nearly 50 percent of staff at Houston's Hobby Airport called off Monday, leaving fewer employees to help control the swell of travel mayhem.
Senators are currently chasing a deal that would fund much of DHS, including TSA agents.
Meanwhile, Trump had ICE agents descend on some of the busiest airports in the US on Monday.
President Donald Trump had Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents descend on some of the busiest airports in the US on Monday
Acting DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis would not confirm the locations of the officers but did outline what the agents would be doing
The federal agents are still getting paid.
According to the White House, the agents have helped decrease airport wait times in recent days, but did not specify how that's been done.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the agents' presence 'is yielding results', and that the Trump administration has 'seen wait times decrease, not as much as we'd like.'
By midday Wednesday, New York's LaGuardia Airport saw a line that virtually extended the entire length of Terminal B, the Associated Press reported.
While many are experiencing lengthy wait times, and even flight delays and cancellations, other travelers have reported having a breeze of a time getting through their travels.
Tuesdays and Wednesdays are known as the least busy travel days at airports, offering less hassle and lower fares.
The wave of flight chaos has gotten so severe that travelers are reporting suffering health-related symptoms while on long lines, with one suffering a panic attack while stuck underground in a TSA line at a Houston airport.
When Meg Lauck entered the TSA line at George W. Bush airport on Tuesday, the sea of people curled up to three floors deep and flowed back all the way into the basement, something she referred to as a 'hellhole.'
TSA acting administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told the House Homeland Security Committee that the agency is now 'being forced to consolidate' during a hearing on Wednesday
'I'm sorry, it's really bad. We're underground,' she told ABC 13. 'I have some claustrophobia. This is not pleasant.'
The experience left her so traumatized that she was forced to leave the airport and rent a car to drive back to New Orleans, Louisiana, Lauck said.
Fliers in Houston are facing some of the longest TSA lines in the country, with travelers waiting around for more than two hours in Terminal A and E on Wednesday, KHOU 11 reported.
The airport has faced a high number of callouts, with 36 percent of TSA staff not coming in for their shifts.